PRTC Young Carers Workers Conference
Manchester 12th October 2010
Louise Wardale
Keeping the Family in Mind
Coordinator
Barnardo's Action with Young
Carers Liverpool
Aileen Alexander
Team Leader
Barnardo’s Action with Young Carers
Liverpool
Jane Weller
Senior Improvement Officer
Children’s, Families and Adults
Liverpool City Council
How well are we Keeping the Family in
Mind…?
A collaborative approach required!
Summary
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Key ingredients to working collaboratively
Improvements and outcomes
Thinking Family
Guidance
Developing the guidance
What does the guidance say?
Taking the guidance forward
Implementation sites
Why think family?
• One third of UK adults with mental health problems are parents
• Most parents with mental health problems parent their
children effectively, however:
Mental health problems can lead to difficulties parenting in
some instances
Parental mental health is a significant factor for
children entering the care system
• Nearly a third (29%) of young carers are caring for a parent
with a mental health problem
Barriers to ‘thinking family’
• Challenge of interagency working
• Confidence and willingness to assess outside
usual professional boundaries
• Information sharing
• Knowledge of services
• Fragmented Services
Developing the guidance
June 2006
Systematic map
of evidence
2006 – 2009: Evidence reviews:
• Research reviews on prevalence,
detection and interventions in parental
mental health and child welfare
• Parental mental health and child welfare:
Review of professional education
• Parental mental health and child welfare:
Review of policy
2006 – 2008: Practice inquiries in five
local authorities
April 2009
Consultation with
advisory group
(including
children and
parents)
July 2009 ‘Think
child, think
parent, think
family’ guidance
produced
Key recommendations
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Screening
Assessment
Planning care
Providing care
Review of care plans
Taking a strategic approach
Multi agency led review of services
Senior level commitment
Supporting workforce development
Taking the guidance forward
Training and
development
resources
E-learning
Social Care TV
‘Think child,
think parent,
think family’
guidance
Six local
implementation sites
and evaluation
National
implementation
Training and development resources
1 & 2 – Foundation modules
3 - Screening
6 – Putting the plan
into place
4 - Assessment
7 – Reviewing the
plan
All staff groups
5 - Planning
8 – Frontline
management
9 – Strategic management and commissioning
Practitioners/
managers
Commissioners
Implementation sites and evaluation
• Six implementation sites:
Birmingham
Lewisham
Liverpool
Northern Ireland
North Somerset
Southwark
• Local approaches to implementing the guidance
• Ongoing evaluation to capture learning and outcomes
examples of implementation plans
•Develop a Think Family Strategy
•Update protocol between CSC and AMH – to include
CAMHS, Third Sector, young carers, children and parents
•Implement workforce development strategy
•Develop communication strategy
•Improve signposting
•Better involvement of parents and children
•Review screening tools
•Improve care plan reviews
Where the journey began…
“They say things like ‘we only work with your
mum’ but my mum lives with me so its all
connected”
“ Its difficult enough living with mental health
problems, but it feels like me and the kids have all
our problems separated out and then no one gets
the whole picture and sees how we are all
affected”
Why Liverpool?
• Keeping the Family in Mind (KFIM)
• Increased desire to work more closely together
in identifying the strengths and opportunities for
improvements across services in order to
achieve better outcomes for affected families
• Active participants in development of Guide
• Practice survey
• FAMILY Collaborative
Improvements & outcomes so far…
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Jelly Baby Logo
Culture change
Increased visibility and social inclusion
Improved access to support and services
Improved identification and assessment
More confident and supported workforce
KFIM Pack
New types of service provision
The journey continues…
‘The guidance is a great way to help staff and those
people that are at the top of the organisations to really do
something because it began with understanding families
like ours, who are trying their best but need some support
every now and again’
‘I hope it will help to change things, and lots of staff I
think do want to work together, but then they say things
like’ its not really my job’, I don’t really understand how
these organisations work but to me its needs those ones
at the top, those senior ones to say we are going to really
work on the things in the guidance because it will help
families’
Implementation site objectives
• To work with SCIE to implement the Guidance
• To develop and implement a local work plan
• To provide ongoing evaluation to capture learning
and outcomes
• To share information across other implementation
sites
• To share learning and outcomes with others
Liverpool Site
Liverpool’s SCIE Work Plan…
Scoping exercise complete and informed action plan:
•Think Family Memorandum of Understanding (Think Family Core
Group)
• Supporting workforce development ( WFD subgroup – emerging
action plan)
• Communication Strategy – internal & external
• Family Centred Care - subgroup
• Children’s Centre Project – steering group
• Young Carers Assessment Care Pathway
• Data Collection and Improvement
Partners details
CAMHS - Alder Hey NHS Foundation Trust
annie.mercer@alderhey.nhs.uk
AMHS - Mersey Care NHS Trust
carol.bernard@merseycare.nhs.uk
fran.fitzgerald@merseycare.nhs.uk
Liverpool PCT
clare.mahoney@liverpoolpct.nhs.uk
Engagement & participation - Liverpool Mental
Health Consortium
Andy.Kerr@liverpoolpct.nhs.uk
Contact Details
Jane Weller – Senior Improvement Officer (Carers) Children’s, Families
and Adults
Liverpool City Council
jane.weller@liverpool.gov.uk
Aileen Alexander – Team Leader Barnardo’s AWYC Liverpool
aileen.alexander@barnardos.org.uk.
Louise Wardale – Keeping the Family in Mind
Co-ordinator Barnardos Liverpool
louise.wardale@barnardos.org.uk
Hugh.Constant@scie.org.uk.
Contact details cont…
• Webpage detailshttp://www.liverpool.gov.uk/Health_and_social_care/family/index.asp
• More information on our Think Family work please contact
thinkfamily@liverpool.gov.uk
Your Experiences……
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immediate reactions/thoughts, …..what’s working well for
you locally…
What policies and procedures do you have locally to
encourage you to think family in your work?
What do you think the blocks/barriers are?
What are the solutions?
How will you take back the information you have received
today about ‘think child, think parent, think family’ into your
local areas?