The Family Preservation Model

Families involved in child protection or in need of support by children’s services, range among those who face some of the most complex challenges known to statutory agencies.

 

Traditional therapeutic approaches and fragmented service provision cannot meet their therapeutic needs. These families need interventions that directly create a framework which ensures that children’s and their parents’ basic psychological, educational and developmental needs are met.

 

Some of these needs are:

 

• Receiving and providing adequate attention,

• Living in a social environment in which there is Emotional self-regulation and co-regulation between parents and children,

• Emotional interpersonal security,

• Safety and protection from physical, sexual or emotional abuse and coercive control,

• Daily routine and reliable structure, including meaningful activity and education,

• Adequate and appropriate supervision and guidance that balances watchfulness with respect for autonomy which is commensurate with a young person’s actual developmental stage,

• Deterrent from and inhibition of acting upon harmful or self-destructive impulses, and,

• Integration in natural (non-professional) social networks that can anchor and support the family and its members in times of heightened stress or crisis.

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Parents cannot yet provide for the needs of their children, as long as their own basic psychological needs remain unaddressed. For this reason, Connective Strength integrates psychological approaches which address parents’ needs as well as facilitating a child focus.

 

The core model we employ, which gives our service delivery structure and direction and informs every step our practitioners take, is Non Violent Resistance Practice, or “NVR”.