Family and Early Childhood Services Beyond Family centred natural, challenging and enlightening FECS

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Family and Early ChildhoodServices Beyond
Family centred - natural, challenging and
enlightening!! FECS experience of Strengths
Based Practiceand Natural Learning
EnvironmentsMt Gravatt Service
CentreDisability Services Qld
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Objectives

• To share how the strengths approach has helped
  focus and distil the family centredness of our
  service through
• detailing our journey (as therapists)
  organisational, community and professional
  factors
• sharing the experience/ideas of a creative
  family linked with FECS

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DSQ Mt Gravatt Early Childhood Services

• Early Childhood Services Mt
  Gravatt Service Centre
• From 0-6 years
• Psychology, social work, speech pathology,
  occupational therapy physiotherapy service
• Individual, group, and family support services
  available
• Centre-based, home visits and community liaison
  (e.g. child-care visits).
• Eligibility
• Child is less than 6 years of age, and
• has, or is at risk of developing, a significant
  developmental delay
• Lives in the geographical area of the service

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Family centred approach

• The model of service for FECS has been Family
  centred since 1990s in accordance with service
  guidelines
• Carl Dunst (1995)inspired questions
• Does your intervention enhance the family?
• Does your intervention strengthen the community?

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Carl Dunst questions contd

• Does your intervention enable the parents to do
  their job well?
• Does your intervention enhance individual
  development and protect the rights of individual
  family members?
• In practice we were still more therapy centred
  and felt that we could be more effective in
  supporting families

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Further focus appreciative inquiry leads to
Strengths Approach

• Our team in 2003 adopted the appreciative inquiry
  framework allied with a strengths approach with
  basic training for all team members
• Particular tools were developed and modified
  (ongoing basis, according to parent feedback)

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Strengths Based Practice

• Principles most relevant to our team
• Respect uniqueness, rights, privacy
• Collaboration
• Integrity
• Acceptance
• Equality
• Empathy
• Self determination (persons envisaged desirable
  future)
• Strengths enabling people to identify and
  further develop their personal, cultural and
  community strengths

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Strengths Based Practice

• Desired Aim of Service
• To support families to cope and build on their
  strengths rather than taking an expert
  approach, we strive to reinforce the familys
  existing capacities
• To facilitate client-directed changes that are
  meaningful and significant to them

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Strengths Based Practice

• Benefits and Relevance of Model
• Acknowledging strengths and change helps in the
  process of achieving change
• Helps people to see themselves as agents of
  change
• Helps people recognise what they did to achieve
  change and apply this to their life

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Strengths Based Practice

• How do we do it?
• Help families to identify their priorities,
• provide support in a variety of environments
  using flexible service models
• Ongoing evaluation is therapy contact making a
  difference?
• (Hanft and Pilkington 2000)

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Natural Learning Environments

• Rationale for natural learning environments
• Learning occurs throughout day
• Learning linked to practice
• Learning linked to usefulness and relevance
• Easier when learning opportunities included in
  daily routines
• What makes a difference in a childs day
  practical goals

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Natural learning environments

• Routines
• Whats working well and why?
• Which are difficult and stressful times of the
  day?
• What would make difficult routines easier and
  help child learn new skills at the same time?
• Understand family ecology- use ecomap

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Strengths Tools used

• Ecomap, with permission
• Individual Family Support Plan
• Progress planning form
• Goal setting parent feedback and problem
  solving skill building and long term
  effectiveness
• Parent networks skill and resource sharing,
  emotional and practical support

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Strengths tools used

• Letters
• Celebration posters (small)
• Use of strengths cards, stickers
• Change scales

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Organisational constraints

• Necessary formal policies and procedures (funding
  applications, eligibility criteria)
• High demand for services draining resources
  staffing and equipment
• Organisational systems/required language eg
  critical incident reporting
• Time pressure/reduced contact time
• Having referrals from and to other Departments
  with deficits model, outcomes focussed

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Community expectations

• That FECS can
• fix the child or take responsibility for
  creating change
• supply any equipment needed, or respite for
  families
• Be aware of and can advise others of culturally
  specific needs
• In reality there is high demand for services and
  resources and we have to prioritise

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Community expectations our strategies

• Listening, supporting, pointing out existing
  strengths/abilities
• Providing opportunities for networking, sharing
  of ideas, education, community skill acquisition
  eg resource mornings, workshops
• Supporting demonstration/modelling techniques (by
  parents and others)
• Use of other community resources (eg
  transcultural agencies, Sing Grow)

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Professional expectations

• Limited repertoire of ways of being influential
• Expert knowledge vs local expertise
• Limits of skills
• Expectation of professional bodies that will use
  evidence based techniques

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Professional expectations solutions

• Strengthen skills eg straight talking. Use of
  action learning techniques (eg with Sing Grow),
  regular informal feedback from families
• At least annual surveys of families
• Seeking current research that supports our
  experience (eg natural learning environments).
  Being involved in new research projects
• Focussing on local knowledge, strengths
  techniques eg change scales, exceptions

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Family feedback local expertise

• Jaydens Journey

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Where to from here?

• Annual facilitated Team Strengths Reflection day
  
• Regular monthly team reflection session
• More family involvement/feedback (eg Family
  routines form, suggestions box, how best to
  survey families, how to explain approach
  explicit vs implicit)
• Eulers vision
• Audience Feedback

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References

• Childress, D. (2004) Special instruction and
  natural environments Infants and Young Children
  Vol 17, No. 2
• Crossley, R (1997) Speechless facilitating
  communication for people without voices
  Victoria. Penguin.
• Diamond, M.C., Scheibel, A.B., Elson, L.M. (1985)
  The Human Brain Colouring Book New York. Harper
  Collins.
• Dunst, C. J. (2001) Participation of young
  children with disabilities in community learning
  activities. In Guralnick, M.J. (Ed) Early
  Childhood Inclusion Focus on Change. Baltimore,
  Maryland Paul M. Brookes.
• Hanft and Pilkington (2000) Therapy In Natural
  Environments The means or end goal for early
  intervention? Infants and Young children, 12 (4),
  1 -13.
• King, Rosenbaum, King. (1996). Parents
  perceptions of caregiving Development and
  validation of a measure of processes. Devt Med
  Child Neurology, 38, 757-772.
• McCashen, W. (2005) The Strengths Approach.
  Bendigo, Vic. St Lukes Innovative Resources
• McWilliam, R.A. (2000) FINESSE Families in
  natural environments scale of service evaluation.
  Chapel, North Carolina Frank Porter Graham
  Child Development Centre

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References contd

• McWilliam, R.A. ,Tocci, L., Harbin, G.L.(1998)
  Family centered services service providers
  discourse and behaviour Topics in Early Childhood
  Special Education, Winter98, Vol 18, Issue 4.
• Moore, T. (2005)
• Natural learning environments for children with
  disabilities
• Changes and challenges Rethinking services for
  children and families, and the implications for
  specialist disability services
• Centre for Community Child Health, RCH Melbourne
  (papers for Principles of early childhood
  practice Symposium, 22/7/05 Brisbane)
• Rapp, C. (1998) The strengths model. New York,
  Oxford University Press.
• Roper, N and Dunst, C.J. (2003) Communication
  Intervention in natural learning environments
  Guidelines for practice. Infants and Young
  Children, 16 (3) June 2003.
• Wicks,A. Whiteford,G. (2003) Values of life
  stories in occupation-based research. Australian
  Occupational Therapy Journal, 50
• .