A guide to what works in family support services for vulnerable families / by Kieran McKeown
Year: 2000
Type: report
Abstract: A t the beginning of the millennium, Irish family support services are in an expansionary phase.In 1998, the Government launched Springboard, an initiative of 15 family support projects.In 1999, the Government also committed itself establishing 100 Family and Community Centres throughout the country in line with a recommendation in the report of the Commission on the Family. 1 In addition, the National Development Plan 2000-2006 contains a substantial allocation of funds to childcare, community and family support, and youth services all of which are supportive, directly or indirectly, of family life. 2 The importance of family support has also been underlined in the new Guidelines for the Welfare and Protection of Children which devotes a separate chapter to family support services.3 In tandem with these developments, there have also been initiatives to address the lack of co-ordination in statutory services, particularly as they affect disadvantaged families and communities who depend on them most.The need for these initiatives was highlighted by the Taoiseach in December 1998 in the following terms: "something is missing in the way we have approached the problem up to new....We need urgently much closer working relationships between statutory organisations.... Agencies must take more account of the real needs and experiences of end-users when designing and planning services".4 Initiatives to promote greater coordination include the Strategic Management Initiative at national level, the promotion of partnerships at local level and especially the Integrated Services Process (1988-2001) which is piloting new models of integrated service delivery in four disadvantaged communities.The need for co-ordination is also recognised in the context of family support and is one of the criteria on which the effectiveness of initiatives like Springboard is being evaluated (see, for example, McKeown, 1999).These developments have the potential to benefit vulnerable families in disadvantaged communities.In order to ensure that this potential is fully realised it is important that everyone involved in this work is fully appraised of the most effective ways of supporting families.That is the purpose of this paper.There is no scarcity of good advice in the literature on family support.Most of it is practical and good common sense and much of it is repeated here.However the main focus of the paper is on those ways of working with vulnerable families which, as a result of systematic research, have been shown to be effective.
Author: Kieran McKeown
Language: English
Topic: Social Sciences and Policies
Subfield: General Social Sciences
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W134683405