1. Clinical Specialist for Safeguarding
Think Family
Laura Spittles
Clinical Specialist for Safeguarding

3. Findings from the MACA What is going well
RISE hold weekly multi disciplinary meetings about safeguarding cases
Regular contact between RISE and Children’s Social work
Sharing of reports and attendance at meetings
A case in the South evidenced effective working together

4. What we are worried about
Think Family not embedded across the partnership
Working together effectively not consistent
Professionals did not share their expertise
Lack of understanding around agencies contribution to the bigger picture.
Inconsistent recording of children in the family/parenting responsibilities
Not sharing information
ADULT AGENCIES NOT ALWAYS
KEEPING CHILD FOCUSED

5. Think Family in Assessments
"A successful service for Families with a parent with a mental health problem and/or a alcohol or drug dependency will:
promote resilience and the wellbeing of all family members, now and in the future
offer appropriate support to avoid crisis and to manage well if a crisis arises
secure child safety
Think child, think parent, think family: a guide to parental mental health and child welfare HM Government (2009)

6. Think Child Who are the Children? What is their story?
What is their lived experience?
Is the child a young carer?
A Seen Child is Not a Safe Child
Almost every child who has been subject to a serious case review over the last 40 years was 'seen' by a professional within days (or hours) of their death.
Simply seeing a child is not protection against harm. Workers need to try to understand what the world looks and feels like for that child.
Getting a narrative of the child's day-to-day experience is a good place to start rather than getting them to answer yes/no questions
Interaction is NOT the same as 'Attachment'
Parents may overcompensate or put on a display for strangers - but parents tend not to be able to 'fake it' for more than a few minutes. Why not ask them to play with their child and during the play demonstrate how they place boundaries.
Don't assume that a child has a secure attachment style because they are smiling. Determining the quality of attachment is a skilled and sometimes prolonged task.
Many children who are abused are compliant and eager to please. Often even very young children are torn between trying to protect their parents from detection by the authorities and protecting themselves.
Questions to consider are:
What is the quality of the parents' responsiveness to the child?
What evidence have you observed in the child's behaviour that suggests secure, ambivalent, avoidant, disordered?
What research supports your view?
Neglect is a Relationship Issue
Neglect (nits, poor hygiene, weight loss, lack of supervision, etc) may signal a poor adult-child relationship. All neglect stems from parents prioritising something else over the child's basic needs.
Workers sometimes become too tolerant of high levels of neglect and fail to spot risk.
What is going on in the relationship between the parent and child that has allowed this to happen?
Where do the parents' priorities lie?
Does the parent have a sense of the child's 'otherness'?
How aware is the parent of the child's needs, personality, strengths and struggles?
What is it like to be that child's age and living in that household?

7. Think Parent
How does their mental health and/or alcohol or drug dependency impact on their ability to parent?
How does their parenting responsibilities impact on their mental health and/or alcohol or drug dependency?

8. Think Family Include any actions regarding the child in the adult plan
Share information with other professionals working with the family

9. “My Mum’s Got a Dodgy Brain”
Film

10. Quotes from the children
"I notice stuff I'd like to tell mum’s nurse but don't know how“
" I feel like I have to make myself scarce when mental health staff come round"
" I don't even know the name of mum’s mental health worker and have never met them"
" When the crisis team is involved it feels like people in the house all the time but no one explains what's happening“
“ Why am I not included in the meetings they have”
“I look at my baby sister being happy and I remember how
that feels and know it won’t last”

11. Voice & Lived Experiences of Children
(with thanks to young people from a Barnardo’s project
in Liverpool)
“Introduce yourself. Tell us who you are and what your job is”
" Give us as much information as you can"
" Tell us what is wrong with our parents"
" Tell us what is going to happen next”
“ Talk to us and listen to us. Remember it is not hard to speak to us: we are not aliens”
“Ask us what we know and what we think. We live with our parents: we know how they have been behaving”
“Tell us if there is anyone we can talk to. Maybe it could be you”

12. Think Family group work
In pairs:
Discuss how you identify & record children/young people/adults in the same household
What can you do to support these families?
What else can you do?

13. COPMI

14. Planning care
Care planning needs to be flexible enough to meet the needs of each individual family member as well as the family as a whole, and staff should aim to increase resilience and reduce stressors.

15. Assessment & Plan
Who could care for the child in the event of their parent not being able to do so?
What is the support of the wider family?
Providing the child with information about their parent in a way they can understand
Parental agreement to keep the school informed?

16. Supervision
Safeguarding supervision must ensure that the focus of the work is on the child and that the child’s needs are always paramount.
There needs to be evidence that the voice of the child is considered and recorded as part of the safeguarding supervisory process.

17. THINK FAMILY
The Think Family agenda recognises and promotes the importance of a whole family approach:
No wrong door – contact with any service offers an open door into a system of joined-up support. This is based on more coordination between adult and children’s services.
Looking at the whole family – services working with both adults and children take into account family circumstances and responsibilities. For example, an alcohol treatment service combines treatment with parenting classes while
supervised childcare is provided for the children.

18. THINK FAMILY
Providing support tailored to need – working with families to agree a package of support best suited to their particular situation.
Building on family strengths – practitioners work in partnerships with families recognising and promoting resilience and helping them to build their capabilities. For example, family group conferencing is used to empower a family to negotiate their own solution to a problem.