WORKING WITH NON-COMPLIANT, DIFFICULT OR AGGRESSIVE FAMILIES

Ever since the death of Baby Peter Connelly (died Haringey, August 2009) the subject of so-called "non-compliance" has been at the forefront of discussion in UK child protection practice. In many ways, the term "non-compliance" is a strange one as it tends to suggest the prevalent myth in child care social work (and especially within multi-agency groupings) that social workers have powers to force people to do things. There are no such powers anywhere in the Children Act or subsequent legislation (although there is within criminal offending legislation) to make people do anything they don't want to do. Even a Court cannot force this although the Court may decide on a Care Order / Adoption. The concept of "commanding change" is nonsense and is what we call "Canute Error" (after King Canute and the probably apocryphal story of him commanding the tide to halt). It simply does not work.

However, the Serious Case Review summary (2005 - 2007) found that sometimes social workers were so relieved at just getting through the front door of some families that standards of "good enough" parenting were not applied and accurate perception of the child's experience of its world became lost in the chaos of the difficult lives of these families. In some cases, the workers themselves came to "mirror" the chaos of the families as they lost sight of what the cases were really all about - the welfare and safety of the child.

And please don't think for a moment "holier than thou" and say "I wouldn't do that". It is easy to get "sucked in" to the chaotic misery of people's lives and particularly so when many social care staff are by nature "rescuers" and the people they see emotionally very "needy" - see Attachment Theory. If you now just add in a few organisational and judgement errors (see Error Theory) and you may well have a recipe for disaster brewing.

The following course is designed as either a one day or two day training. The two day option enables more time to be given over to interventions.

Learning Objectives:

General Aim: develop clarity of role when working with non-compliant, avoidant or resistant families and develop skills in assessment and intervention when families do not engage.

• Explore what constitutes a "non-compliant", “resistant” or “avoidant” family.

• Develop knowledge of research on non-compliance, resistance and avoidance.

• Keeping the child as the central focus during assessment and intervention.

• Develop knowledge of Conflict Resolution / Negotiation.

• Develop knowledge of research on how to persuade and influence people.

• Develop clarity of understanding of role and organisational responsibilities including the use of legal options.

• Use Supervision effectively.

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