Is An Integrated Approach The Way Forward In A Residential Child Care Setting? A Family Therapists Journey
This presentation will demonstrate the benefits of adopting a systemic approach in working with children who are looked after within a residential setting in an integrated way. We will take you on our journey so far of how we have developed our services on systemic principles over the last five years. We will share with you our research findings and evaluation of residential staff experience of systemic thinking and practice training delivered by the Family Therapy Training Network in Scotland. We will discuss our findings from our preliminary research which will evidence how this has impacted upon the culture, attitudes and beliefs of residential staff and has influenced their practice in relation to working with families. We will discuss our current pilot projects within our organisation and some ways in which it aims to promote systemic ideas in the future through academic training, systemic supervision and collaborative working.
Within this workshop we would like to share our experiences about how to overcome some of the challenges of engaging, understanding and connecting with a family’s journey through systemic work in a residential environment. Our interactive workshop hopes to highlight the importance of looking at a young person within a residential setting through a systemic lens as part of a integrated approach. We want to share our ideas about how residential workers can make a meaningful difference in understanding and connecting with young people’s stories.
Our workshop aims to explore the following objectives through exercises and group discussions:
- Explore good practice ideas in working with a child systemically.
- How to cultivate systemic thinking and practice within the culture of residential childcare setting.
- Approaches to working with young people and their families systemically and collaboratively as part of a multi-disciplinary team.
- Ways to overcome barriers in including parents.