Working with families can be a challenging experience. This book looks at the personal skills needed to engage families, both at home and in the community. It provides guidance on how to assess and manage the needs of individual family members, whilst also being mindful of potential risk factors. With easy to use activities and resources, this book will inspire you to think about creative new ways to plan and carry out your work.
Based on tried and tested techniques, this is a must-have for social workers and social work students, as well as child protection workers, therapists, counsellors and child and family centre workers. It is the perfect complement to Direct Work with Vulnerable Children, also by the same authors.
1. Introduction. 2. The First Home Visit. 3. Keeping Yourself Safe. 4. What to Do if You Dont Get Access: The Client Refuses to Open the Door. 5. Once in the Door. 6. Working with Resistance, Challenging Behaviour and Aggression. 7. Using Praise. 8. Getting Started. 9. The Bag. 10. Activities to Support Engagement. 11. Activities to Aid Assessment and/or Help with Big conversations. 12. Simple Ideas to Increase Parent/Child Proximity and Positive Touch. 13. Behaviour. 14. Storytelling. 15. Endings.
There has been a lot of rhetoric in recent years about reclaiming direct work with children and their families against a backdrop of bureaucracy, business processes and a lack of emphasis or focus in training or education. The authors utilise their extensive experience to provide workers with an informed, practical roadmap for engaging with family groups to enhance outcomes for all children and their families. This practical book provides a plethora of ideas and materials to guide people through this and in so doing provide a resource that encourages us to achieve the reality of direct work rather than accept the continued rhetoric. It will be widely used by ever-busy frontline workers wanting to re-focus their practice. - Martin C Calder, Social Work Trainer, Consultant and Author This book provides lots of very practical suggestions for practitioners regarding the kind of things they should be thinking about and looking for when entering a childs home. It looks at building relationships with the family and finding imaginative and fun ways to engage and build some consensus on what is needed for the child or children and how we can best achieve it together. What comes across is a healthy sense of professional curiosity and the notion that being yourself and being prepared to take some risks in your engagement with families - as long as its accompanied by a good level of self-awareness and critical reflection - will make successful outcomes more likely. Audrey and Helens work is not just useful and informative but fun to read. I hope that others too will enjoy the book and find something to inspire and inform their direct practice with families. - Andy Jeffries, Service Manager, Childrens Practice Teams, The City of Edinburgh Council
