Quote of the Day

Although each case is individually referred, often with a specific remit if it is a court-ordered assessment of parenting capacity, the centre has a common approach to cases:

“... We always start with the referral meeting without the family, with the referring social worker and at that point we look at the chronology, look at what the family themselves have asked for, look at what the referring social worker is aiming to achieve. And at that point we try to think: OK, what’s the task? And from that it may be direct work with the child or with the parents; it may be family work or a mixture of all of these” (Caroline, centre manager).

Within this broad approach, there is a sense that the order in which services are offered is important, and that parents need to be at the right stage to embark, for example, on a parenting programme. The preferred centre order is for parents to see the counsellor first. This has resonances with the approach advocated by Crittenden (1992) and Howe et al. (1999; p. 278), who suggest that “practitioners should manage and plan their interventions in some broad developmental order,” beginning with emotionally supportive interventions like counselling, before considering, for example, behavioural techniques. Gemma (centre social worker) commented: “We take a lot of care around how we start the work here. We think and reflect a lot about the best way to do the work”.

The centre also likes to determine, in conjunction with the area team social worker and the families themselves, the duration of services, although there is pressure from management for short-term work:

“We have to battle really hard for the area team not to close the case too early. If you keep closing the cases too soon they come back as referrals. We prefer to hold them, and see them through to a managed ending” (Caroline, centre manager).

Most families work with the centre for up to a year although families can be re-referred and come back. The two families followed for the purposes of the larger study were at the centre for seven months (Good family) and one year (Smith family).

Centre staff explained that although they are part of social services, they are not perceived in quite the same stigmatising way by families:

“We are part of social services — but it’s not the first thing on families’ minds — because they have have such a negative view. They focus more on the building and the people here. We have time and space, and listen and engage, and take genuine care, rather than running round with a hundred cases” (Elizabeth, centre social worker).

Layla (a centre social worker) explained that those outside the centre may have the attitude that work undertaken at Sunshine is a luxury but pointed out that workers are expected to provide a professional opinion: “Hard decisions are made here as part of court commissioned parenting assessments — the responsibility feels heavy and we need to be so self-aware — what’s going on for you and where that fits into the case.” These difficult professional decisions were often tested out several times: in supervision, peer support and in outside supervision with a systemic therapist. This ability to discuss and reflect on decisions in depth was important to the group, as the decisions made were often painful, involving recommendations that children be removed from — or not returned to — parents.

MARIAN BRANDON

Brandon, M. (2006). Confident workers, confident families: Exploring sensitive outcomes in family centre work in England. International Journal of Child and Family Welfare, 9(1,2), pp.63-78