Serious Intervention for Serious Problems

Whilst working as Senior Social Worker for children who were convicted of serious offences and sent to secure accommodation by the courts through the justice system, I worked with the youngest child in Great Britain who had committed a serious offence. Throughout this time we worked under considerable pressure pressures to find ways of working with this young offender to hopefully bring about change.

I devised a programme which worked therapeutically with the child and adapted it to meet this individual. (See previous articles on Theraplay in the back issues section). However, I was disillusioned to see so many children committing serious acts and becoming increasingly allocated to placements all over the country. It also became apparent that these children’s emotional development was not commensurate with their age which was the determinant in their sentencing. This led me to going back into the community and work along the lines of intervention work before it got to the stage of children where being locked up in secure accommodation.

Community-based Measures

I then started work in a special needs school for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, with ages ranging from 5 to 11 years of age.
These children had been excluded form mainstream schools for many different reasons and had varying individual needs .Some had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Post Traumatic Stress (PTS), Learning Difficulties, Attachment Disorders, Integration Problems (IP) Challenging Behaviour or Bipolar Disorder (Manic Depressive). There were “looked after” children in care, fostered and adopted children, abused children and many more.

The main aim of the school is to motivate children who had found schooling a challenge by providing a secure, calm, learning environment which is stimulating through the richness of the educational experience offered and which displays a caring approach and the encouragement given by each staff member.
Social Work Intervention and Training

Since starting to work there my role as a Child and Family Therapist had become extremely complicated in meeting the needs of individual children and their families through a holistic approach.

During 2003 I met with two very experienced Social Workers who were trying to develop co-working with all agencies working together. In our education setting, we had already reached some goals by having health and educational professionals working alongside such as Psychiatrists, Education Psychologists, Mental Health Nurses, Doctors, School Nurses, and Occupational Health Workers.

However, we only seemed to meet up with Social Workers when it was crisis point, at this point training was discussed with Northampton University (UCN) to explore Social Work Student Placements in an education setting. The package of training was pioneer by myself and delivered to the UCN Lecturers and Practice Teachers. After the Senior Lecturers had explored the details of the documents and the learning opportunities to meet the core components of the strict criteria for students, it was agreed and went ahead during November 2003.

Initially the first student was in their second level placement doing BA Honours which meant they had an 80 days’ placement. The placement was such a success that the following year another three social work students came through our doors, each undertaking 50 days.

First, all students became familiar with the environment and the risk assessment procedure documentation. Once this base line of information had been absorbed, they met to explore their own areas of learning opportunities. They became familiar with the set-up of each class base and teachers’ teaching styles, and they observed the complex needs of individual children and the dynamics of the class groups. Once this was accomplished they established individual case studies prior to meeting individual families and children. This set-up gave each individual the prospect of exploring cases, looking at the needs of each individual service user and working towards implementing a clear base line of understanding of the work they needed to cover.

Some individuals had the opportunity to work alongside children with mental health issues, ADHD, low self esteem, dual heritage difficulties, social exclusion, difficulties with identification, self harm and abuse. This helped to extend their abilities in developing skills while working alongside the individual parents and carers of children, either supporting them individually with therapeutic programmes or through support groups.

Outcomes

The outcome of all the student placements was that each student developed the ability to communicate and engage with perhaps some of the most complex families in the area. This was often seen in the way they developed relationships with families and children to minimise any additional problems occurring. They were able to use many skills, such as networking effectively with other professionals.

They participated well in promoting and enabling rights for children and adults in the community, bringing about change and developing strengths. Through having access to documentation they were able to deliver skills in assessing risk and they helped the child and their families to exercise their rights through using other services or producing their own package of care.

The social work students were able to support, and intervene with, children who were at risk and to contribute to the care programme’s plan to offer protection by bringing about change. Whilst work in the education environment has been developed, intervention has brought about amazing results for many families.

The team work demonstrated bringing professionals coming together has established fundamental value bases and beliefs, and on occasions has been thought provoking. However, it has established change not just for the two departments but the individuals as a whole.

The long term aim is that other professionals will, hopefully, seek to continue working alongside each other to bring about effective communication and that ultimately, as demonstrated in this pilot project, the project will be so successful that parents and carers feel comfortable in making self referrals, so that the services can work together in achieving a shared goal - supporting children and families well before crisis point is reached.

Diane Gower
Child and Family Therapist
Contact : digower@aol.com