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Families, Care and Protection. Dr Kate Morris University of Nottingham kate.morris@nottingham.ac.uk. Studies and sources. An international review of the evidence for FGDM ( www.americanhumane.org ) and a national review of family approaches (UK Cabinet Office)
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Families, Care and Protection Dr Kate Morris University of Nottingham kate.morris@nottingham.ac.uk
Studies and sources An international review of the evidence for FGDM (www.americanhumane.org ) and a national review of family approaches (UK Cabinet Office) A study of family participation in the reviews of cases where a child has died or suffered serious injury as a result of abuse / neglect (www.baspcan.org.uk ) A study of families with complex and challenging needs and their experiences of multiple service use
The health warning…….. Small scale studies– only tentative themes possible but accessing families whose voices have not previously been heard The challenge of accessing families : issues of professional control of access and information, anxiety about family well being, anxiety about approaching families destabilising other work underway, uncertain about rights to participation Issues of hearing and representing suffering
The Focus of Concern Who is family? ‘do you mean who lives in this house or who is in my family?’ How do you ‘do family’? We’re really close, strong family. We stick together and that. And if we’ve got a problem we try to sort it out between us all ..........They just see us as a family falling apart…..whose got problems’ ‘XXX’s side of the family is okay, it’s brilliant. My side of the family is weird and comes crashing down basically....they’d probably say dysfunctional.
Working with the family Partial engagement : ‘they’ve always done that haven’t they, like made appointments just for me and XXX, and then we’ll go and see ’em and then we’ll come back and .. these lot haven’t got a clue what’s going on, just apart from what I’ve told them ……’ Pre set / misjudged assumptions (professionals and families) ‘Can I mention here that one of the biggest hurdles I felt is agencies not being aware of where the family may be at in terms of engagement with other agencies to give our example of the production of the SCR at the end of the court case where it appeared to me the judge and the LSCB were NOT aware my family had not been granted permission to bury our child?’ ‘…I always remember one line which said we need to treat this family robustly, and I said to the chief executive, I’d love it if you’d written this family may know things of interest to us, we should really welcome them in.’ Fresh Starts and Resistance ‘It was just going from one agency to the next, to be told... it’s like... you keep going on, repeating yourself, and they say the same things, and then you’re like whoa, I’ve been in this situation before, but you’re a different person. And it’s just the same thing and in the end you think might as well...’
Family Engagement The evidence reviewed indicates an ongoing problem in arriving at full engagement. There appear to be two elements to this: a) Only partial engagement of the family (by focusing on either the presenting problem or the particular functions of the family member); b) Only partial engagement of potential family group users, with services failing to engage either all those families targeted and/or those families experiencing particular difficulties.
Points of Engagement Families describe contrasting perspectives of their family and their ways of ‘doing family’ , with rare examples of any shared descriptions or common ground with their impressions of professional perspectives. How families are positioned when they seek services determines who is worked with and in what capacity: ‘resourceful’, ‘responsible’, ‘anti social’ and ‘socially excluded’ (Murray and Barnes 2010)
Practice with families Assumptions about who ‘knows’ what: ‘...from my experience I found that the serious case review highlighted lots of things for me, actually put the jigsaw pieces together’ (family member) ‘...also that .....to attend is pretty harrowing, let alone if its your family, it is mind blowing because of all the information, because its the reality’ ....(family member)
Practice with families Restricting who knows what: ‘I said I’m not going to let you put him in residential when I’ve come all this way and I’ve worked for like nine years on my own, I said because you’ve done nothing for me, and what happens with people like that when they say stuff like that to parents, parents stop telling them what’s going off at home because you don’t want to lose your kids.’ Creating complex layers of communication: ‘They told me I should leave XXXX but I never told him that…..’
Practice with families ...And they came round, well they wrote a letter that they was coming round on a certain day, and so we scrubbed the house, we done all the house, and when they come they just looked at it like it was normal .....and they didn’t come back, they didn’t come back, and then obviously XXX’s mum, because she was worried about us towards the end, she phoned social services...Came out again, caught us a bit off guard because the kid’s rooms was a mess .....I said this isn’t my fault, if they’re not going to tidy up I’m not going to do it, and I said I’m not on drugs, whoever is ringing you are lying, and they just kept taking our story, until eventually we told them, we said you know what we are on heroin, and we said we do need some help.
Understanding family life Roles and responsibilities: ‘....the key thing has been that agencies haven't had a clue about the role of some family members, the family participation has revealed fresh insights into the child’s life’ (SCR report author) ‘....like when I just used to take (her daughter) up they never really asked about XXX did they, they didn’t say where’s dad, never asked, they just, like all they was bothered about was like I got her to the appointment.’
Extending understandings and extending practice Complex questions arise from this overview of family experiences: • Who do we engage in practice and why? • How do we understand and work with family practices that seek to shape our understanding of children’s lives? • How can we develop approaches that change family narratives and enable helping relationships?
Family Reflections on the effective practitioner: The capacity to care for the family and to demonstrate this care in their practice Providing services in a reliable and trustworthy manner that delivered changes The ability to set clear boundaries but to do so in a manner that was seen as appropriate and balanced with good listening skills and an acknowledgement of the reality of family life The use of positive regard and building on strengths to work with the family Acknowledgement of the challenges facing the family and a willingness to act as advocates where necessary The building of self esteem in family members and their ability to resolve problems using their own knowledge and skills ‘
Family narratives : implications for engagement ‘ So I do think that some agencies should be more hands on rather than just say and promise things. Instead of giving people false hopes, a lot of them give you false hopes, when they come they promise you the world don’t they, yeah we’re going to do this, things are going to be a lot better...just that they need to stick to what they say and sometimes, don’t just take a parent’s word as well, like with social services and that, sometimes I think sometimes they need to investigate a bit more because they tell a worker what they think they want to hear don’t they, in some cases, you know if they think they’re going to get into trouble, if they think they’re going to get into trouble parents can say anything to the worker. Basically they really need to listen more, they need to like do the job, instead of pulling the wool over your eyes.’
Narratives: the practice implications The legacy of multiple experiences of repeated interventions should not be underestimated -moving the family on from an ingrained narrative about a service ( e.g. social workers want your children, or police want to move you on) is important if change is to be supported: ‘…if somebody else helps and it doesn’t work you’re still left, you’re left with double the amount of work really, you can’t do that anyway, why should you do that now, why should you let them.’ ‘…there’s a level of trauma whatever way you look at it, but all the different processes that you have to engage in and the way you are dealt with has to take all of that into account, and that’s definitely not happening, and even when you try and engage with you know the local safeguarding board, whoever it is, if you feel as though you know, they’re obviously not there, they don’t understand.’
Family recommendations Family recommendations for improving services were based upon their experiences of the services they have / have not valued. The provision of practical intensive support was repeatedly recommended by family members. Families were looking for ways in which professionals could demonstrate the skills families needed to develop and to help ensure this learning could be used: ‘Yeah. When I was at my lowest I had, I couldn’t control myself never mind the situation, not that I’m saying I wanted somebody to come in and say right you’re doing this, I would have just been like, whoa, but somebody who would have come in on a friendly level, like a friend, and said right we can see you’re struggling, we’ll take you to the doctors, and if you need help doing this we can help you with this, this and this. Kind of like a support worker.’
Suggestions for Practice • Comprehensive understanding of family life (e.g. not household composition) • The value of practical, available help that connects families with services and alleviates anxieties (e.g. co-ordinating appointments, transport) • Transparency and accountability • Showing not presenting (e.g. doing parenting work with children in the home not lessons elsewhere) • Extended understanding of family composition and engaging more family members in services (e.g. adult sister joining in parenting classes) • Sophisticated assessment that enables family practices to be understood, not just the presenting arrangements / displays (e.g. family observations) • Recognise the connections between practice and the behaviour of the family and make adjustments in understanding and interventions (e.g. family shaping what is known and why and being able to articulate this)
