Kinara FRC – Family Skills Training
IYPP PROJECT
1. Context of the Project
1.1 Service Context
The Kinara Family Resource Centre is a social services resource for teenagers (13-17) assessed as ‘Children in Need’ and works in supporting young people and their families in order to divert from accommodation, harm and criminal activity. The Kinara Centre is a statutory resource working across the London Borough of Greenwich. The Centre has developed and provides a portfolio of integrated, inclusive, focused and preventative and empowering services that include a variety of case work and group work initiatives. The Centre is a ‘needs led’ service in that services have been specifically developed to meet needs that have been directly identified within our work with families. Historically, the Centre has provided parenting groups in order to support parents whose children may be involved, or at risk of being involved, with criminal activity. Additionally, the Centre has developed a number of groups for young people in order to provide them with support and to develop their resilience.
Kinara’s services can be mapped using a pyramid to show a hierarchy of needs and services, as illustrated in the diagram below. Those at the apex of the pyramid (the top tier) would be those young people ‘Looked After’ by the local authority or on the Child Protection Register. The tier below would refer to ‘Children in Need’ in accordance with the Children Act 1989 – section 17. Targeted and focused services such as those provided by Kinara are geared towards these needs, while young people with lower levels of need would be able to access universal services such as schools, primary health care and Connexions. Kinara’s role is to enable young people and their families to access or get the most out of community and universally available services whilst recognising that at times some families have additional needs that require more specific targeted support.
Locating needs and services
1.2 Underpinning ethos
The Kinara Centre attempts to work in an anti-oppressive way and tries to ensure that services that are offered will be undertaken within a culturally appropriate framework, addressing the needs of different groups. Difference is celebrated and service users are encouraged to reflect upon issues of gender, race, ability or disability, sexual identity, class and religious beliefs as part of the process of work. The discrimination, racism or oppression that many families experience is acknowledged in our work and we attempt to address this by the use of positive imagery and materials that are reflective of diverse backgrounds.
Practical support is offered to families on a ‘needs led’ basis in terms of transport arrangements, childcare, accessibility of venue, for example, and any other support needs will be addressed in order to decrease barriers to attendance. This is also an acknowledgement that the most deprived families are likely to have greater support needs.
Kinara emphasises:
- Working in partnership – promoting user involvement
- Strengthening family relationships & developing resilient young people
- Family centred, systemic and solution focused work – working with young people in their context
- Outcomes focused services
- Supporting parental capacity and motivation
The broad aim of the service is to “reduce the numbers of young people becoming involved in crime and prevent re-offending by providing integrated guidance and skills-based structured programmes for parents and carers”. The specific objectives and content of the existing group work service, based on an eclectic model include:
- Empowerment ethos
- Consolidating and developing parenting capacity and motivation to meet child’s needs
- Equipping parents with and consolidating coping strategies in relation to adolescent behaviour
- Improving parenting skills in relation to communication, negotiation, problem solving, boundary setting, handling conflict, managing stress
- Increasing awareness of self, others and relationships
- Reducing sense of isolation
- Focusing on specific skills: budgeting, accessing training and employability, for example
- Drug and Alcohol awareness
1.3 Parenting Strategy
With the implementation of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, Greenwich Youth Offending Team and Family Support Services developed a parenting support programme for parents of young offenders and those at risk of offending. The service provides group support to parents who are experiencing difficult and challenging behaviour from their children aged 10-16 years old and who may be subject to Parenting Orders.
The parenting service originated as a pathway provision that worked in partnership with Greenwich YOT between 1999-2002. During this time the service was part of national research focusing upon parenting support to parents of young offenders. This research along with local evaluation indicated how parents felt that the service supported them in terms of managing difficult and challenging behaviours. Additionally carers indicated how they felt empowered to address other factors within their lives e.g. feeling confident to study, return to work etc. The service was commended in the 2001 Health and Social Care Awards and received £2,000 in order that the good practice is disseminated.
Additional funding streams such as the Children’s Fund and BIP (Behaviour Improvement Plans) in schools have been used to further develop the service in terms of offering the intervention at an earlier stage of a young person’s involvement in crime.
The parenting group programme has developed to ensure that information pertaining to drug awareness is included. This developed in consultation with carers. Many families have been and are affected by drug and substance misuse and the parenting groups have been a useful forum to access appropriate information about local resources and advice. There is a drugs session in both the parents’ and young peoples’ group programmes.
Including young people in the work with parents was seen as the next step in the development of the services. The Centre bid for and was successful in being funded in the Involving Young People in Parenting programmes project (IYPP), implementing Family Skills Training at the centre.