St Mungo’s and Action for Children
Rebuilding Shattered Lives roundtable
discussion
Supporting homeless and vulnerable
women and their children: Breaking
intergenerational cycles of deprivation
and neglect
The Family Needs of Homeless
Women with Complex Needs
Alexia Murphy
St Mungo’s
St Mungo’s – Our Vision
Everyone should have:
• A decent place to live
• Something meaningful to do
• Satisfying relationships with other people
• The good health to enjoy them
Who are the Women we work
with in St Mungo’s?
•
•
•
•
Demographics
Needs and ability
Housing and Resettlement
Women in contact with the CJS
Case Study – Sarah
• Childhood experience of severe
parental violence
• Contact with the care system
• Substance Use
• 4 children
• Housing History
• A life lived subject to assault
Women’s pathway into
homelessness
•
•
•
•
History of abuse and violence
Traumatic loss of children/family
Substance use / mental health
Often not characterised by contact
with homelessness/statutory services
• Childhood characterised by unstable
housing and/or childhood
/adolescent abuse
Better Deal for Women
Peer Research Project - why women achieving poorer
outcomes than men and what can be done
Conclusions
• Complexity of needs
• Accommodation recommendations
• Staff understanding and training
• Children and Families as the key recovery goal
Missing Families
• Addressing emotional and relationship
needs
• The myth of the ‘single homeless person’
• Approaching family work
• Developing relationships with children’s
social services
What works?
•
•
•
•
Women’s Outside-In group
Lifeworks Psychotherapy
Enabling child contact
Chrysalis – Psychologically informed
environment
What works?
Key considerations:
Stigma / barriers to services
Domestic Violence
Pregnancy
Prostitution
Rebuilding Shattered Lives – a
call for solutions
• 18 month Campaign
• Panel of Experts
• 9 key themes
Themes and Experts
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Housing and Homelessness
Substance Use
Domestic Abuse
Families and children
Childhood Trauma
Employment and Skills
Women involved in the CJS
Mental Health and Wellbeing
Involvement in Prostitution
alexia.murphy@mungos.org
Troubled Families
Joe Tuke
Director Troubled Families, DCLG
The programme
The families
Family Intervention
Challenge for System Reform
The programme
•
PM commitment to ‘turn around lives’ of 120k troubled families
by 2015
•
Schooling, youth crime/ASB, work; high cost
•
Primarily PbR. Up to £4k per family
•
Programme started April 2012; as at Dec 2012 65k identified and
23k being worked with
•
Not an education programme, not an employment programme,
not a crime programme .... a family programme turning around
each of 120k troubled families.
The families
Evaluation will provide richer picture but we know:
• have complex family structures – nearly 1 in 5 FIP families have
more than five children
• often have inter-generational problems that have proved
intractable
• have a comprehensive range of needs/problems – a quarter of
mums have a long-standing illness, in 1/3 of FIP families there is
DV, 1/2 FIP families include children who are truanting, excluded
or behaving badly at school.
• have high impact on community – an estimated 1 in 5 young
offenders come from troubled families
• attract multitude of uncoordinated services –up to 20 different
agencies involved with one family
Family Intervention
Pioneered by Action for Children – Dundee Homeless Families
Project
•
A dedicated worker dedicated to the family
•
Who looks at what’s really happening for the family as a whole
•
And gives practical hands-on support
•
With an assertive and challenging approach
•
Backed by an agreed plan and common purpose among the
relevant services.
System Reform Challenge
Mum plus 4 children …
• Eldest in LA care, placed back in family
• Next on Child Protection Plan
• Next is Child in Need
• Next has got Team around Child
Not integrated, not whole family, not getting outcomes