Education Forum, November 2017

1. Working with Families

2.  Specialist Education provision for children and young people aged
between 5- 14 with complex Social, Emotional and Behavioural Needs.
 Provide services on both a national and regional basis, with children
being referred by local authorities throughout the whole of Scotland.
 We offer a 24 hr curriculum, providing rich opportunities for children to
learn and grow within and beyond the classroom.

3. Parent/Carer Involvement
 Ongoing contact via phone, email, visits to Harmeny,
Homevisits
 Harmeny Parent/Carer group
 Parent/Carer events
 Family interventions
 Resilience Assessment
 Supporting family contact

4. Parent/Carer views……..

5. Barriers that can Impact on our work with
families
 Parent/Carers experiences of working with professionals
 Family feeling judged/attempting to withhold information for fear of
consequences
 Individual needs of Parents/Carers and lack of understanding of child’s needs
 Substance misuse/mental health difficulties
 Location, transport, employment or additional commitments of a family
 Lack of relationship/infrequent communication from workers
 Confidence and skills of the worker/professional

6. Resilience Assessment Process
13 week
Gathering
Information
Period
Assessment
Setting Goals
and Targets
Direct Work
and
Interventions
Core group
meetings &
Evaluation

7. Professional development within teams
 Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP) is based on and brings together
attachment theory, what we understand about developmental trauma, the
neurobiology of trauma, attachment and caregiving, intersubjectivity theory and
child development.
 Troubled children may have had many changes in the people who look after them
and find it hard to trust adults. They may believe that parents aren’t safe and can’t
always be turned to for comfort and help. They may develop insecure attachments
and try to stop their new parents from becoming emotionally close to them
(Hughes. D, 2017)

8. PACE APPROACH
PLAYFULNESS
Brings enjoyment to the relationship
ACCEPTANCE
Creates Psychological Safety
CURIOUSITY
Explore within a relationship- we express a desire to know the
other more deeply
EMPATHY
Communicates our curiousity and acceptance, as we recognise
and respond to other’s emotional experiences

9. Brain Based Parenting Hughes,D (2012)
 “Stressed out adults are parenting in survival mode, using primarily
the lower, more primative brain systems, which automatically come
into play during day to day existence. Such parents need to calm
the over reactive limbic and stress response systems and tame the
amygdala before they can awaken the prefrontal cortex. In short
we must help them dial down their defensive reaction system
before they can access the higher brain systems needed for self
reflection, emotional, regulation and empathy”

10. What changed……
 Looked at ways to Increase our time with families
 More able to hear “their story”
 Experience the “child’s world” away from school
 Develop connections between home and school
 DEVELOPMENT OF RELATIONSHIPS

11.  “Sometimes children’s needs would be met best by meeting their parents
personal needs”. P Crittenden (2008) (Raising parents)
 “People who are not cared for, don’t care. It’s not seeking attention, its
connection.” John Carnochan (2016), former head of Police Scotland’s Violence Reduction Unit

12. Continuing Challenges……
 As workers we continued to feel overwhelmed by the overall needs of the
family.
 Role modelling was not enough if values/beliefs differed
 How to evaluate progress and manage time/resources more effectively
 Ways in which to work with the whole “family system” to create long term
change

13.  “The idea of a systems approach is to recognise that the way people behave and
the problems they have, develop within the context of people that surround
 A systems approach to work with families involves focusing on the whole family as a
functioning unit.
 The focus of work when taking a systems approach is on the system and the context in
which behaviour takes place, not the individual difficulties that bring families to the
attention of agencies.
 Difficulties do not arise within individuals but in the relationships, interactions and
language that develop between individuals, family members
5
Systemic Practice:
“Understanding the family system”
500 × 400 -

14. Considering Systems around the child
Child ACAMHS
Volunteer
Agency
Befriending
Agency
Harmeny
School
Social Work
Educational
Psychology
Child's
Family

15. Significant events and transitions
 Stress in the family’s development is at its highest level as the family
move from one phase of life to another. Most families manage transitions,
sometimes with difficulty, but a few get stuck in this process and negative
behaviour patterns can emerge as family members struggle to adjust to
the new situation.
 It is important that workers explore, when problematic behaviour started
and what was happening in the family around the same time

16. Developments in Practice
“What Is the difference that makes the difference!”
 To move away from worker being the expert
 Clear and agreed understanding of what it is that needs to change
 Increased focus on Genograms and chronologies
 Setting homework tasks for family members to undertake between sessions, trying
to disrupt existing behaviour patterns in the belief that family might experience
different possibilities.
 Reflecting team conversation, offers different perceptions and possibilities to
families difficulties and beliefs, highlights family strengths.
 Therapeutic Documents, reinforces strengths, reframe behaviour,.

17. Group Discussion
 Consider existing barriers and ways to
develop Parent/Carer engagement within
your organisation.
 CONTACT DETAILS:
 Leanne.mcleod@harmeny.org.uk
 Tracy.white@harmeny.org.uk