The Prevention & Intervention Programme

This intensive Training Programme is designed for use by Local Authorities and agencies who wish to use the approach as a focused whole-team resource when working with clients to bring about change.

Traditionally used as a "Gatekeeping" Service as a front-line resource when working with Children & Families to prevent family breakdown. Following the training, the designated team are able to use the Approach as both a preventative and crisis intervention.

Oxfordshire Council, is the latest Local Authority to launch their Prevention & Intervention Team - see below for details:

Following the intensive training programme which began in May, with a Team specifically recruited to lead the Service, Oxfordshire Council launched their P & I Service on 7^th July 2005.  

 

Oxfordshire are the fourteenth Local Authority to implement our Programme as part of their Children & Services Plan to reduce the numbers of children and young people coming into the care system under Section 20.

 

New premises are being prepared, while the Team are already seeing families in their work to prevent family breakdown.

Top Left: Thelma Phillips, P&I Team, facilitating the Developing as a Young Person workshop as part of the launch day experiential exercises.
Top Right: Maggie Brown, P&I Team implementing the Rites of Passage exercise
Bottom Left: Penny Browne, Childrens Services Manager for Oxford Council opens the P&I Launch day
Bottom Right: Belinda Langston, P&I Team introduces the Dustbin Exercise

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Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council  implemented their Prevention & Intervention Training Programme in July 2004.  The launch of the new service to reduce the numbers of young people entering the care system under Section 20 of the Children Act was held on 21st September. The launch gave the trained team an opportunity to update their colleagues and multi-agency partners on the work they will be carrying out with families. See below for a broader view of the purpose and structure of the resource. (Further launch photos can be found on our News/Articles page).

Top Left: Wendy Westwood, Manager of the Dudley P&I Team, facilitating the Change Balloon experiential exercise with delegates.

Top Right: Eleanor Moyle, facilitating the 24 hour clock experiential exercise with delegates

Bottom Left: Julie Davison, facilitating an experiential exercise from The Developing as a Young Woman

Bottom Right: Eileen Murphy, Emma Cole, Julie Davison and Manager of the new Team, Wendy Westwood, carry out a Role Play to give an example of the approach used in the  P&I structured family session.

Launch Information Release: As a contribution to the local preventative strategy, the Children and Families Division has established the Prevention & Intervention service.  The initiative is based on messages from research around supporting families and links with refocusing to provide a prompt preventative service.

The workers in Dudley, have been trained in the resource over June and July 2004 by Eileen Murphy and her colleagues who devised the programme in 1993.  The approaches embodies a forward-looking model and sets family-identified and family-owned targets over a short intervention period of 6 sessions.  The language used is accessible and emphasis is given to engaging with the practical mindset of families, working within the family, socio-economic and ethnic cultural framework of building strengths.

Goal setting and graded achievement is an integral part of the process so that progress can be readily recognised by participants.  Both parent and child are worked with in the session. Other family members and significant players, including teachers, will also be involved as appropriate.

The service will provide an extensive package of support to young people and their families. It wil offer a rapid response to emergency referrals and immediate request for accommodation in respect of children referrred under Section 20 will be firmly resisted until the intervention is completed.

Feedback from Local Authorities who have implemented the Programme include:

The Prevention and Intervention service went live on Oct 18^th 2004. The service is based at Greystone Passage in Dudley and operates a duty system from 0900 to 1700 Monday to Friday although the Family Support and Community Adolescent Support services both offer a limited service at weekends and Bank Holidays if required.

 

Referrals for the district team are processed by the duty officer. Priority is given to families where there is a high risk of children becoming looked after under sec 20 CA 1989. 

 

By having the whole family together in a neutral setting it gives them a chance to listen to each other as well as to be heard and to know that their opinions are valued. The family then move from problem dominated thinking towards solution orientated thinking, talking and description. The trained practitioner acts as a conduit to move the service user from victim to a position of recognising their own strengths, resources, competences and solutions.

  

Since going “live” in October 2004 the duty system has dealt with over 200 referrals . There are currently over 140 families receiving a service. The training in the summer had an extremely positive impact on the teams and staff morale remains high. The resulting self confidence and optimism is brought to the families during the therapy sessions and the successful outcomes so far achieved reinforces how powerful this method of intervention can be.  In terms of impact on the organisation the desired outcomes of the service were, for children and young people aged 11 and over ;

 

• Increase service user satisfaction
• Reduce the size of the Looked After population
• Reduce the number of new admissions to care
• Reduce the duration of care episodes
• Reduce spot purchased external placements due to capacity issues
• Reduce out of hours admissions

 Questionnaire returns over the last six months have indicated a high level of satisfaction from families and service users and data from our management information systems show a significant drop of around 50%  in the number of new admissions to care for this group of young people including a sharp fall in out of hours admissions. In the last few months the directorate has been able to bring back four young people from external placements which were made due to lack of internal capacity.

 

John Donnelly

Service Manager – Family Support – Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council 2005

"I have used Eileen Murphy Consultants as a change agent for social workers and their managers to divert young people from the care system. Eileen Murphy developed the approach when I was Director of Housing and Social Services in Sutton and I re-engaged her to work on similar issues on the Isle of Wight. In both cases her approach made a significant difference to the numbers of young people going into public care.

On the Isle of Wight we have reduced the numbers in public care by 12% in 2 years against a national trend of rising numbers. Much of this reversal I put down to the effectiveness of Eileen's training and teaching. The Isle of Wight has established itself as a 2 star authority after a failed Joint review in 1999. The SSI have determined we are serving most children well and have promising prospects for improvement. I would have no hesitation in recommending Eileen Murphy Consultants for work in this area". Charles Waddicor, Director of Social Services & Housing, Isle of Wight Council (now Director at Oxfordshire County Council)

"The Prevention & Intervention training was received enthusiastically by Bracknell Forest children's teams who are now using their skills in everyday situations with the children and families they work with.

The training has changed our way of thinking and shifted the emphasis from problem solving to looking at change and possibilities.

The training was fun and very well presented and the next "batch" of social workers are waiting eagerly to complete the training.

The following comments were made by various attendees of the course.

"Yet another useful tool, the charts and visuals have helped me focus on what needs to change, not on what has gone wrong"

"It focused on strengths and possibilities"

"Very useful, I have been able to use the various tools in many different ways"

"It focused on language which is important, the presenters were knowledgeable and fun"

"I now use the graphics and task charts regularly and it has helped families focus more"

These were just a few of the comments - we are using the tools and have had some very good results. We are now able to offer families an alternative and by enabling them to take control - the results speak for themselves". Verna Goodman, Bracknell Social Services.

For further feedback from participants and commissioners of the programme - please visit the Testimonials page

Birmingham City Council implemented the Prevention & Intervention Training Programme in March 2004 to develop its Targeted Family Support Teams.  On the completion of training, the team held an in-house Information Day in order to share their new skills and interventions with field work colleagues and partnership agencies. Although Birmingham have not used their Team as "gatekeepers" and have not implemented the complete structure of the Programme - the participants use their training as a resource in their individual work with families.

Birmingham Targeted Family Support Team Information Day

The Programme is designed for use by teams who wish to use the approach as a focused whole-team resource when working with clients to bring about change.

The Programme is also offered to YOT teams to prevent recidivism., Drug & Alcohol Teams to help clients achieve change and to Education teams to reduce disaffection and exclusion.

(the first P & I Team undergoing training, London Borough of Sutton 1993)