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26 MARCH 2010

NO 1559

Family centres

In England family centres are mostly offered as a component of family support and provide services that accord with the following definition from the Audit Commission in England and Wales (1994, p. 39):

"Family support is any activity or facility provided either by statutory agencies or by community groups or individuals, aimed at providing advice and support to parents to help them in bringing up their children".

Family centres also fit within the remit of the England and Wales Children Act 1989 and the general duty of local authorities to provide or promote family centres as a means of meeting their protection and prevention responsibilities towards children and their families (Pithouse, Lindsell, & Cheung, 1998, p. 55).

However, family support services in England, as elsewhere, encompass protection against neglect and maltreatment as well as prevention. Recent English government guidance and legislation have emphasised the need for policy and practice to embrace preventive services and to incorporate the twin aspects of protecting children and promoting their welfare (Department of Health, 1999; 2000). The latest raft of government reports have reaffirmed this stance: "Child protection cannot be separated from policies to improve children's lives as a whole" (DfES 2003, p. 5).

Within this complex and volatile debate, family centres have developed along a shifting continuum, from genuinely voluntary services at one end to more coercive or legally mandated aspects of provision, at the other end. Some centres span the range while the policy of other centres will propel them to incline more to either prevention or protection. Open access centres are more likely to be voluntary and act as a neighbourhood resource, promoting community development, while specialist centres focusing on serious family dysfunction and child protection are more likely to have restricted access via professional referral and thus be more distanced from the local community (Pithouse, et al., 1998).

In this respect many families attending a restricted access family centre may present particular challenges as 'involuntary clients' sent as part of a child protection plan and may be hostile and resistant to services. In 1994 the Audit Commission report cautioned that services should be targeted on those who can make best use of them if they were to be cost effective. A key challenge to effectiveness with 'involuntary clients', is arguably, to appeal to them in such a way that they become more 'voluntary clients' who are more likely to benefit from services. The characteristics of organisations like local authorities can appear to mitigate against services being appealing.

A number of authors have argued that attempts to improve child protection services in the UK and elsewhere have tended to focus on bureaucracy, procedures and performance management (Ferguson, 2005; Munro, 2002; Tilbury, 2004). This procedurally-oriented, targetdriven approach has been said to "squeeze out" the psychological aspects of the work and fail to get to grips with the emotional and professional impact that hostile and needy families have on workers (Ferguson, 2005).

Psychodynamic theory tells us that the anxiety of professionals working with needy families where they are expected to somehow make up the deficits of poor parenting and protect children are high (Woodhouse & Pengelly, 1991). In order to manage these everyday anxieties, Cooper and colleagues (2003) argue that professionals must be self-aware, flexible and sensitive to the factors underlying their own and the family's behaviour and emotions. Supervision and good support, they claim, is crucial. If management structures and staff support systems collapse, the result is often paralysis in the workers, or ill health, or absenteeism or other signs of stress (Brandon, et al., 2002). Family centres which can provide "protection, nurturance and avenues for development for parents and their children" (Lightburn & Warren-Adamson, 2005) may also have a part to play in extending this nurturance to staff, both within and beyond the centre.

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. 63-64.

REFERENCES

Audit Commission. (1994). Seen but not heard: Co-ordinating community child health and social services for children in need. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

Brandon, M. (in press). Working at Family Sunshine Centre: Identifying sensitive outcomes. In A.N. Maluccio, C. Cassoli, & T. Vecchiato (Eds.), Measuring success in child welfare. London: Oxford University Press.

Cooper, A., Hetherington, R., & Katz, I. (2003). The risk factor: Making the child protection system work for children. London: Demos.

Department for Education and Skills. (2003). Every child matters. London: Stationery Office.

Department of Health. (1999). Working together to safeguard children. London: Stationery Office.

Department of Health. (2000). Framework for the assessment of children in need and their families. London: Stationery Office.

Ferguson, H. (2005) Working with violence, the emotions and the psycho-social dynamics of child protection: Reflections on the Victoria Climbie Case. Social Work Education, 27, 4. pp. 781-795.

Lightburn, A., & Warren-Adamson, C. (2005). Developing a community based model for integrated family center practice. In A. Lightburn, & P. Sessions, Handbook of community-based clinical practice. New York: Oxford University Press.

Munro, E. (2002). Effective child protection. London: Sage.

Pithouse, A., Lindsell, S., & Cheung, M. (1998). Family support and family centre services. Aldershot, England: Ashgate.

Tilbury, C. (2004). The influence of performance measurement on child welfare policy and practice. British Journal of Social Work, 34, 2. pp. 225-241.

Woodhouse, D., & Pengelly, P. (1991). Anxiety and the dynamics of collaboration. Newcastle: Aberdeen University Press.

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