The primary aim of the service is to provide a skilled, multi-disciplinary assessment of families with special needs, where there is concern over their ability to parent their children. The service provided is delivered via a small staff team who each bring their own unique skills to this assessment process. By ensuring a small dedicated staff team, children are not exposed to multiple carers and the family is enabled to develop and maintain their primacy of care with their own child. Children attending our Residential Service do so in the care of their families, and the family at all times retain the care of their own child. The role of the support team is to facilitate this care, to assess its underlying nature and to examine the effect of skilled intervention upon their parenting abilities. In essence we are considering parenting potential.
The service acknowledges the evidence base that all parents with special needs will face a challenge in parenting their children. This challenge has the potential to lead to long-term neglect and we support the evidence base that such potential for unintentional neglect may be ameliorated by the successful intervention of services. Our role in our centres is to determine the nature of this long term intervention and to identify the potential for this intervention to enable children to safely, securely, and happily remain within their own families.
Where this is not possible, the aim of our work is to ensure that families understand the reasons why their children cannot remain with them. They may, of course, not agree with these reasons but our belief is that it is vitally important for their future well-being that they are enabled to plan their future family life. Where a vulnerable adult is unable to continue to care for their child, we see our assessment role to be to identify their own needs for future support to live successfully within the community alone without their children.
The Symbol Family Service core residential team is supported by an Assessment Team, the members of which are regularly and consistently working within the centres. This team consists of a Specialist Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Senior Social Workers, Specialist Speech and Language Therapists, psycho-drama therapist and a Specialist Health Visitor. These personnel, in the main, undertake the primary assessment and prepare reports for court proceedings. During the stay at our centres, the members of the Family Support Service will work with clients in individual and group sessions and undertake structured and informal observations. In identifying key targets for change and monitoring the adult’s response we are able to identify the changes that have been achieved. We identify the specific strategies required to support intervention and review any change we observe in parenting application.
We aim to provide a positive, warm and nurturing environment where families can experience the value of family life, mix alongside other families going through the same process and begin to understand their role in parenting their children. We aim to assess their ability to understand the needs of their children and to begin to meet those needs. Where families have to face difficult issues and choices within their own family life, our team are on hand to work through this process and to assist them in placing the needs of their children first.
Our specialist team has many years of experience in supporting parents with special needs and in working with parents who are vulnerable. In some instances we will be asked to support families where there are children who have special needs, rather than the parents with special needs. Our skills and abilities as a team and our experience of working with children with special needs enable us to meet this challenge in a unique manner.
Our service is based upon evidence. It is based upon the research data which informs us as to the parenting difficulties, styles of intervention and possible outcomes for parents with special needs. Our underlying philosophy is based on a behavioural approach which enables us to work alongside families to look at changing behaviour whilst creating deeper understanding.
Many of our families will have central cognitive impairments. They will need assistance with learning, and a clear understanding of their learning needs and styles will enable us to ensure that the most effective learning takes place in the shortest possible time. Centrally, we consider their potential to maintain this new learning throughout the child’s minority years and to adapt to the child’s changing needs as they grow.
We aim to develop skills in the adult to enable them to live more successfully within the community; to care for themselves, to maintain their financial position, to budget, to cook, to maintain a healthy, happy environment both for themselves and their families as they grow. Many of our families will not have enjoyed good extended family support, and part of our role is to determine the support that may be required that may otherwise come from an available extended family.
Whether our service is provided at one of the residential units or in the community, we are able to build a supportive environment where children and parents are given the maximum opportunity to enable the Professional Team to make sound robust decisions for their future.