Exploring inequities in child welfare and child protection services: Explaining the ‘inverse intervention law’

Attempts to record, understand and respond to variations in child welfare and protection reporting, service patterns and outcomes are international, numerous and longstanding. Reframing such variations as an issue of inequity between children and between families opens the way to a new approach to explaining the profound difference in intervention rates between and within countries and administrative districts. Recent accounts of variation have frequently been based on the idea that there is a binary division between bias and risk (or need). Here we propose seeing supply (bias) and demand (risk) factors as two aspects of a single system, both framed, in part, by social structures. A recent finding from a study of intervention rates in England, the 'inverse intervention law', is used to illustrate the complex ways in which a range of factors interact to produce intervention rates. In turn, this analysis raises profound moral, policy, practice and research questions about current child welfare and child protection services.

The Family Model - A transgenerational approach to mental health in families: personal, clinical, educational, research, systems and policy perspectives

The Family Model – A transgenerational approach to mental health in families This workshop will provide an overview on The Family Model (TFM) and its use in promoting and facilitating a trans­generational family focus in Mental Health services, over the past 10­ - 15 years. Each of the speakers will address a different perspective, including service user/consumer, clinical practice, education & training, research and policy. Adrian Falkov (chair) will provide an overview of TFM to set the scene and a ‘policy to practice’ perspective, based on use of TFM in Australia. Author: Heide Lloyd. The Family Model ­ A personal (consumer/patient) perspective | United Kingdom Heide will provide a description of her experiences as a child, adult, parent & grandparent, using TFM as the structure around which to ‘weave’ her story and demonstrate how TFM has assisted her in understanding the impact of symptoms on her & family and how she has used it in her management of symptoms and recovery (personal perspective). The Family Model ­ Education & training perspective ­ Marie Diggins | United Kingdom PhD Bente Weimand | Norway Authors: ­ Marie Diggins | United Kingdom PhD Bente Weimand | Norway This combined (UK & Norwegian) presentation will cover historical background to TFM and its use in eLearning (the Social Care Institute for Excellence)and a number of other UK initiatives, together with a description of the postgraduate masters course at the University Oslo/Akershus, using TFM. The Family Model ­ A research perspective PhD Anne Grant | Northern Ireland Author: PhD Anne Grant | Ireland Anne Grant will describe how she used TFM as the theoretical framework for her PhD looking at family focused (nursing) practice in Ireland. The Family Model ­ A service systems perspective ­ Mary Donaghy | Northern Ireland Authors: PhD Adrian Falkov | Australia ­ Mary Donaghy | N Ireland Mary Donaghy will discuss how TFM has been used to support & facilitate a cross service ‘whole of system’ change program in Belfast (NI) to achieve improved family focused practice. She will demonstrate its utility in achieving a broader approach to service design, delivery and evaluation.

Providing a ‘whole-of-family’ approach to care: family-focused practices in mental health services

Introduction: Family members including children are all impacted by a family member’s mental illness. Although mental health services are increasingly encouraged to engage in family-focused practice, this is not a well-understood concept or practice in mental health care. Methods: An integrative review using systematic methods was conducted with international literature, with the aim of identifying concepts and practices of family-focused practice in child and youth and adult mental health services. Results: Findings from 40 peer-reviewed literature identified a range of understandings and applications of family-focused practice, including who comprises the ‘family’, whether the focus is family of origin or family of procreation or choice, and whether the context of practice is child and youth or adult. ‘Family’ as defined by its members forms the foundation for practice that aims to provide a whole-of-family approach to care. Six core practices comprise a family focus to care: assessment; psychoeducation; family care planning and goal-setting; liaison between families and services; instrumental, emotional and social support; and a coordinated system of care between families and services. Conclusion: By incorporating key principles and the core family-focused practices into their care delivery, clinicians can facilitate a whole-of-family approach to care and strengthen family members’ wellbeing and resilience, and their individual and collective health outcomes.

Reducing child conduct disordered behaviour and improving parent mental health in disadvantaged families: a 12 month follow-up and cost analysis of a parenting intervention

The effectiveness of the Incredible Years Basic parent programme (IYBP) in reducing child conduct problems and improving parent competencies and mental health was examined in a 12-month follow-up. Pre- to post-intervention service use and related costs were also analysed. A total of 103 families and their children (aged 32–88 months), who previously participated in a randomised controlled trial of the IYBP, took part in a 12-month follow-up assessment. Child and parent behaviour and well-being were measured using psychometric and observational measures. An intention-to-treat analysis was carried out using a one-way repeated measures ANOVA. Pairwise comparisons were subsequently conducted to determine whether treatment outcomes were sustained 1 year post-baseline assessment. Results indicate that post-intervention improvements in child conduct problems, parenting behaviour and parental mental health were maintained. Service use and associated costs continued to decline. The results indicate that parent-focused interventions, implemented in the early years, can result in improvements in child and parent behaviour and well-being 12 months later. A reduced reliance on formal services is also indicated.