Creating Change for Complex Children and their Families: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Multi-Family Work

The strain of caring for children struggling with severe and complex mental health needs affects the entire family. The staff at the innovative Croft Child and Family Unit have developed a unique approach of working intensively with the whole family, and encouraging them to share their experiences with other families, to instigate a complete change that will benefit all family members. Using detailed case studies to illustrate the model, the book focuses on the needs of children with a wide range of developmental, emotional and behavioural difficulties, and explores the complicated interactions between these children, their families and their communities. The care team includes nurses, psychiatrists, doctors, family therapists and creative therapists, social workers and teachers. They examine how to integrate a range of therapeutic interventions and how to use the powerful relationships that develop between professionals and families to enable positive, lasting changes. This book will be indispensable reading for trainees and professionals working with children with mental health problems and their families, and special needs educationalists wanting to understand the benefits of an intensive, multi-family approach to treatment for children who do not respond to standard community interventions.

Table of Contents:
Foreword. Prologue. 1. Setting the Scene. 2. Therapeutic Engagement. 3. Structure and Containment. 4. A Nurturing Environment. 5. Multi-Family Work. 6. Accessing Learning. 7. Fostering the Child's Social World. 8. Understanding the Individual. 9. Understanding the Family. 10. Creating a New Story. 11. Reflection and Evolution. Appendices. References. Index.

About the Author :
Jo Holmes has been the Medical Director of the Croft Child and Family Unit for over ten years. She undertakes specialist assessments of children relating to autism spectrum disorders, attachment disorders and other conditions. She also trains child psychiatrists and other mental health professionals. Amelia Oldfield is a music therapist at the Croft Child and Family Unit and has worked in child and family psychiatry for over 20 years. She is a lecturer in Music Therapy at Anglia Ruskin University. Marion Polichroniadis was a consultant clinical psychologist at the Croft Child and Family Unit. She has over 30 years' experience of working as a child psychologist in a range of settings including education, child development centres and child and adolescent mental health services.

Review :
...there is a wealth of creative and skill-based learning to be explored here, with access to various tools and measures. If you want to work in such a unit, or to draw upon its models for engaging in intensive interventions in controlled environments such as The Croft, then this will be essential reading. Creating Change for Complex Children and their Families: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Multi-Family Work (Jessica Kingsley Publishers) is more than a description of the work of the Croft Child and Residential Unit in Cambridgeshire. Edited by Jo Holmes, Amelia Oldfield and Marion Polichtoniadis, all of who work at the unit, this book is, of course, that... But, importantly, readers will see how this knowledge and practice can be used elsewhere and the great advantage of the book is a style which shows how the knowledge and practice can be drawn upon. Creating Change for Complex Children and their Families focuses upon the Croft Child and Family Unit. This is a residential psychiatric unit that provides a multi-disciplinary, multi-family model of care for children with mental health problems and their families. The book offers valuable insight and suggestions for professionals who are working with families with complex needs... As I read this book I felt it explainedeach aspect of the model in a very clear, concise manner... I would highly recommend this book to professionals or students working with children and families with complex needs either in an outpatient, or residential setting, in schools, social care or related fields. Case studies bring the story to life and I found myself agreeing with many of the strategies and ideas that were used on the unit. The book, therefore, served to reassure me that I was not alone with some of my approaches to working with complex children. I recommend it as a very useful tool for everyone trying to effect change in children experiencing mental health problems. The editors are senior clinical practitioners... The work is clearly intensive... This clear and informative book is clearly laid out, and it engages the reader... Strongly recommended for Educational psychologists, especially those working in intensive or residential settings for children with complex mental health needs and their families.