What is Take Two?

1. What is Take Two?

2. Take Two • Take Two is a developmental therapeutic service for Child Protection clients who have suffered trauma and disrupted attachment due to their experience of abuse and neglect. • T2 provides a statewide, intensive therapeutic service to those clients who have been severely abused or neglected and are at risk of developing or already demonstrate emotional and/or behavioural disturbance.

3. Who is referred to Take Two? • Clients of Child Protection who exhibit, or are at risk of developing, severe emotional or behavioural disturbance caused by abuse and/or neglect. • Clients of Child Protection who are subjects of substantiated significant and/or very severe harm. • Aged 0-18 years. • May be living at home, with relatives, or in out of home care.

4. What does Take Two aim to do? • The T2 program aims to respond to the child’s needs for: • Safety • Attachment and connectedness • Recovery from trauma • Promotion of development, health and wellbeing

5. Take Two Locations Mildura Horsham Wangaratta Bendigo Seymour Ballarat Campbellfield Flemington Box Hill Secure Welfare Dandenong Geelong Morwell

6. Partnership • Previous research highlighted that placing these children in out of home care was not enough to keep them safe or to enable them to work towards recovery. • It was agreed that neither Child Protection, out of home care, nor therapeutic services were enough on their own to achieve the desired outcomes for these children

7. Partnership • T2 is a partnership of the service systems of mental health and child welfare and the academic fields of psychology, psychiatry and social work. • Each of these bring different areas and approaches to research, therapy and focus.

8. What are the experiences • of children and young people referred to Take Two?

10. Type of Maltreatment Experienced by T2 Clients 120 97 100 82 82 80 Percent 62 60 42 40 20 0 Developmental Abandonment Physical abuse Sexual abuse Emotional Abuse abuse Type of Child Maltreatment 50 20% 45 4 15% 15% 12% 30 Number 25 9% 9% 20 6% 6% 5% 15 5% 10 5 0

11. Type of Placement at Time of Referral to Take Two - 2004

12. Parental factors relating to abuse/ neglect

13. Other parental /family factors relating to abuse/ neglect • 82% had mothers with known trauma histories: examples included 52% with history of child abuse; 40% with experience of rape (other than intrafamilial); 22% experienced significant loss through death of others. • 49% had fathers with known trauma histories: examples included 31% with history of child abuse; 9% with experience of rape (other than intrafamilial); 13% experienced significant loss through death of others.

14. Child experiences of loss/ separation- • 36 children (16%) had a parent figure who had died. • 16 children (8%) had another significant person in their life die (eg sibling) • 36 children (16%) had experienced major loss of contact with parent figure • 47 children (20%) had at least one parent figure in gaol during T2 involvement in 2004. • 57 children (25%) had parent’s relationships change during T2 involvement in 2004. • 177 children (76%) were living in out of home care at time of referral to T2. • 202 children (89%) had experienced at least one previous placement away from their parents prior to T2 involvement. • 100 children (44%) had experienced six or more previous placements prior to T2 involvement.

16. What are the experiences • of those who receive service from Take Two?

20. Stakeholder feedback - 2006 • Stakeholder surveys were sent to clients, parents, carers and workers of T2 teams regarding their perception of outcomes and of their level of satisfaction with service. • Total of 272 surveys have been returned (including

21. Percentage of feedback surveys received by whom? (n=270)

22. Stakeholder feedback aboutTake Two “taking time” • There is a clear relationship between the length of time the client had been in the service and percentage of respondents who believed that T2 had helped the child with their life. • 60% of respondents who were completing the survey in relation to a client who had been referred to T2 less than 6 months ago agreed T2 had helped the child with their life. • This increased to 68% for participants who completed the survey in relation to a child who had been in the service for 6-12 months. • There is a further increase to 83% for participants completing the survey in relation to children who have been with the service for a year or more

23. Percentage of length of time T2 involved (n=270)

24. Did T2 help the child/young person with their life? (n=265)

25. Comments in feedback • There was no difference between clients, parents and carers in terms of overall rating of T2, with 81, 80 and 80 percent respectively reporting that the service was excellent or good. Workers provided an even higher positive rating, with 92 percent or workers describing the service as excellent or good. • Eighty-nine percent of both clients and parents agreed (this refers to both those who responded ‘agree’ and ‘strongly agree’) with the statement “I liked the help Take Two gave me”. An even higher percentage of carers (94%) and workers (92%) agreed with the slightly differently worded statement, “I liked the service received from Take Two”.

26. Ok, we know you like it; but does it help? • Whether T2 helped the child with their life was the area that showed the most variation. • 83% of workers agreed with this statement. • The results among clients and carers were similar with 76 percent of clients and 73 percent of carers agreeing that T2 had helped. • However, among parents this figure was 55%. • Importantly though, this lower figure was due to a much larger percentage of parents responding that they were undecided (35%) compared with other respondents rather than a larger percentage who disagreed. Only 10%of parents disagreed, indicating that they found the service had not ‘helped’.