Our Family Story

The Family Support Service met our family and our Social Worker to agree where we felt we really needed support: Rules and Boundaries for Children, Parent / Child Relationship and Emotional Support for Mum. We were allocated a Family Support Worker (FSW) who visited us in our home twice per week at a time that suited us. We were both very happy to engage with the service as we felt we had ongoing issues, in particular with the relationship between mum and our 12 year old daughter. As the involvement continued and through discussion with the FSW, we began to acknowledge that we also had issues with the younger children in relation to following rules and mum admitted she struggled to implement boundaries. The FSW discussed various behaviour management techniques and it was decided we would try to use the strategies that the younger children were familiar with in their school setting in order to promote continuity. The FSW contacted the school to ascertain what approach they used and it was then agreed with the family that we would introduce this into the home. The FSW created individual star charts as a reward system that aimed to help the children earn extra play time by completing chores, listening, following house rules. We feel that these have worked well and made a huge difference in the home. The FSW used the Motivational Interviewing approach and problem solving activities and was able to support us both to self solve and create age appropriate boundaries for our 12yr old daughter who was displaying erratic behaviour. Following this activity, we both agreed that seeking counselling support from school would be the way forward, as well as looking at social activities for our 12 year old to attend. The FSW then supported our family in contacting the school to ascertain what social clubs were on offer in school. The FSW also made a referral to counselling for Mum as I felt I needed support to recognise and respond to my own low moods. Lastly we benefited from a day trip to a local water activity centre as a result of the summer funding provided by Bryson Family Support and this was a wonderful day out for everyone. Outcome: We are now providing a united front to parenting. Mum is returning to work during the week to help her sense of fulfilment and is excited by this prospect. Mum can now identify her low moods and is asking for help which is extremely positive. Furthermore, Dad has appeared to become much more involved in the discipline of the children which has helped support Mum. The Younger siblings are being offered a consistent parenting approach and the 12 year old is receiving the emotional and social support services required from the school.