A Practical Guide to Early Intervention and Family Support: Assessing Needs and Building Resilience in Families Affected by Parental Mental Health Problems or Substance Misuse

by Emma Sawyer, Sheryl Burton, Allison O'Sullivan (Foreword by)

Overview

Parental mental health problems and substance misuse affect a significant number of families. This handbook provides practitioners with early intervention techniques and effective support strategies for ensuring the best outcomes for these vulnerable families.

Featuring pointers, models and practice examples, A Practical Guide to Early Intervention and Family Support considers the concept of resilience and effective family support. Assessing the policy context and possible barriers to support, it looks at assessment of need, safeguarding children, minimising negative impact, and most importantly, keeping families together where possible. Drawing on key research on the risks and impacts, this book demonstrates the need for a unified approach from a range of adult and children's services. This third edition has been fully updated to reflect developments in policy and services.

Essential reading for all professionals who are involved in providing services to families, it will also be of interest to service commissioners and those with an academic interest in what helps to support children and families in these circumstances.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781909391307
Publisher:	Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Publication date:	01/21/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Emma Sawyer has worked as a social worker, manager and trainer, she has extensive experience of working with children and families with complex and challenging needs. Whilst working for National Children's Bureau, Emma published several resources on how services can best work together to support parenting more effectively.

Sheryl Burton is Programme Director of National Children's Bureau's Health and Social Care programme. Prior to joining NCB, Sheryl worked as a social work practitioner and team leader, specialising in work with children and families on the threshold of care. Sheryl has extensive experience of working with frontline practitioners and services to develop practice to support children and families more effectively and has written a number of publications for NCB.

Table of Contents

List of Practice Examples 9

Foreword Alison O'Sullivan 11

Acknowledgements 13

Introduction 15

Who is this handbook for? 15

How can it be used? 16

What is in the handbook? 16

The practice examples 17

1 Context, legislation and policy 18

Underpinning principles 19

Definitions 20

Prevalence 22

Legislation and policy context 23

The service context 25

2 The potential impact on children and families 29

Family and environmental factors 32

Parenting capacity 36

Children's developmental needs 38

3 What helps build resilience in these families? 47

Factors that increase resilience 50

Factors that enhance children's resilience 51

Bolstering resilience 57

4 Professional responses and barriers to effective practice 59

Barriers to effective practice: What gets in the way? 59

5 How can services support families: approaches to assessment and intervention 74

Early intervention 74

Voluntary and compulsory support 77

Approaches to assessment 80

Approaches to intervention 99

Direct support to children 108

Support to parents 113

6 What more can services do at the strategic level to support families more effectively? 128

User involvement 129

Joint working culture 130

Joint working protocols 131

Coherent policies e.g. on dual diagnosis 131

Training and skills development 132

Creating and promoting more accessible services 135

Tackling stigma 135

Addressing race and culture 137

Reaching fathers 138

7 Final summary 141

Further Resources 144

References 161

Further Reading 170

Appendix: Building Resilience in Families Under Stress - Policy Annex Update 171

1 Cross-cutting service provision 171

2 Children's and adult social care 174

3 Health services 176

4 Welfare reform 177

5 Mental health 178

6 Drugs and alcohol 180

7 Families and parenting 182

8 Disability 185

Index 188

Editorial Reviews

This thoughtful, well-researched and practical book makes a robust contribution to the literature in this complex area of practice. The range of approaches and interventions discussed - illustrated by practice examples from a range of sources - will assist a wide range of professionals to work more effectively together to assess and support families affected by parental mental health and substance misuse, while ensuring that children's voices are heard and their needs never get lost.

Dr. Brynna Kroll

This handbook has been designed to meet the needs of practitioners across a wide range of agencies, including of course local authorities, and it should help those working in these complex circumstances to translate the concept of resilience into practice reality. It provides models, frameworks and crucially real examples in order to assist professionals in their task of helping families with complex needs to better meet their children's needs.

From the Foreword by Allison O'Sullivan