RESEARCHING TROUBLED FAMILIESDr James Hoggett and Dr Liz Frost. University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol.

Contested context of family intervention

• Poverty, the poor and the life cycle approach.

• The family as a site for social policy intervention.

• The criminalisation of the family?

• Garland (2001) a ‘common sense’ view of the problem of crime and disorder.

Evidence for early intervention

• The Cambridge Delinquency study (West and Farrington, 1973; Farrington et. al, 2013) and policy formation for family intervention.

• The original model for FIP was developed from the Dundee Families’ Project. Funded by the Urban Programme, it ran for 2 years with the aim of tackling homelessness amongst a select number of families in relation to anti-social behaviour (Dillane et. al, 2001).

• The research evaluation recognised that the strength of the project lay in its’ ability to respond to families across the breadth of challenges they faced that impacted on their ability to manage other areas of their lives such as a tenancy.

• Key to success was the intensive intervention with families from a single key worker who, managing a small case load, could work alongside the family flexibly and negotiate access to services.

The emergence of ‘troubled families’.• After the summer riots of 2011, the Prime Minister David

Cameron, ascribed, in part the summer’s disorder to ‘120,000 troubled families’.

• According to the DCLG (2014) troubled families are those that have problems and cause problems to the community around them, putting high costs on the public sector. • crime and anti-social behaviour;• education and truancy;• worklessness; • a fourth criterion at the discretion of the relevant local

authority.

• So successful (?) that phase 2 operationalised in 2014 to work with another 400,000 families.

Trouble with troubled families?• There is certainly an engaged critique of family

intervention programmes (Hayden & Jenkins, 2014; Levitas, 2012; Wincupp, 2013) in part due to the perception that social problems are being re-cast as those of anti-social behaviour and crime, and addressed thus (Newburn, 2007).

• The labelling of families with complex needs as ‘troubled’ has perpetuated what Levitas (2012) notes, is the idea that the problem ‘is the behaviour of the poor’ (p6); while political rhetoric fails to address the causes of poverty or indeed state policy failings.

• Families from hell rather than in hell (Gregg, 2010)?

• Lacking long term data –what works, what is actually being done and how as opposed to policy success (X families lives turned around).

Our study• Given that the programme was a new initiative there was

a need to adopt a flexible approach to cope with the dynamic and developing nature of the TFP.

• The research methodology used to carry out the evaluation was mixed method (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004) with different methods being utilised to evaluate different parts of the programme.

• The methods included qualitative interviews with TFP key workers, managers, secondees and families. Case documents for families on the programme were also reviewed.

• Data captured as part of the programmes payment by results (PbR) format was also obtained.

• A research associate from the UWE team also engaged in extensive ethnographic research with TFP workers and families over an 18 month period.

• These methods enabled the research team to carry out a process, impact and social return on investment analysis (SROIA) of the programme as well as provide some case study examples of families on the programme and work carried out with them.

The experience of the families• The criticisms of how and why this policy initiative was put into

place by the government, how local authorities have interpreted it, and generally the stigmatizing nature of such direct family intervention policies and practices has been discussed above.

• That such work is often, as in this case, in lieu of addressing the fundamental social structural issue of poverty, and (and connected to this), violence and abuse, drugs and alcohol, illness and disability, powerlessness, repression and the experiences of isolation, anger and shame generated within this, is not under dispute here (Walker, 2011).

•  But even given this picture, it also seems worth attempting to understand what can be learned about such a service, through the experience of the families who received support under it, and what they saw as important or useful.  

• The interviews with the families, supported also by much of the material from the workers involved in ‘troubled families’, demonstrated a far broader and more complex set of struggles than the government’s notion of ‘troubled’ encompasses.

• The overall naming of the scheme as ‘troubled families’ was more than a little disingenuous: what the government really meant was ‘Troublesome families’: families who trouble civil order, through crime or anti-social behavior, children who trouble schools with disruption and challenges, and most importantly families who trouble the government’s budget, by claiming benefits and using other forms of state support.

• Certainly though the families we spoke to had troubles- were indeed troubled- with, in some cases complex, intractable difficulties, and some found the workers from Troubled Families able to offer some relief from this. What we are going to look at now is some of the key themes that arose out of the semi-structured interviews undertaken with the families. This is a small sample- what we are presenting is some tentative ideas rather than definitive data.

‘Getting People there’The notion of ‘getting people there’ is both metaphorically and literally. It’s easy to underestimate the importance of this literally as a fundamental support task, but as an interviewee pointed out…

•  ‘…just to be able to get to the shops when you are dysfunctional is an absolute threat, and by the time you’d get to the shops I had had about 2 panic attacks and then I’ve got the journey home…so in the end I was starving because I couldn’t bring myself to go to the shops, the kids were living off take aways, and obviously somebody to give you a helping hand…’ F6

Getting there: the worker wishes to be seen – is being seen- as demonstrably helpful…

•  ‘she takes us to the zoo and stuff’ F3

as well as the make or break issue in accessing crucial support

‘..you know just really helping me to get to and from counselling and stuff which is really important, because I was too frightened to go outside…’ F6

• And also puts you in touch with opportunities, potential, change and futures:

• ‘He’s always dropping us e-mails saying there’s opportunities at Sainsbury’s, he’s always doing things like that for us. We apply for it, and if we find any difficulty getting over there or we don’t know where the place is, give him a phone call and he’ll tell us or he’ll offer us a lift or something…’F5

• ‘…like the first time [the worker] came with me, and she dropped me in it (laughs) she said right, I’m going now (laughs) and I’m like God! And like I’m sat there but as soon as I started speaking to people I loved it . It was like every Friday my time, like he [partner] had the kids and you just go there, you do what you have to do, you have like a cup of tea when you want, go out for a fag when you want…’

• F1- about the parenting group

Enthusiasm about the Troubled Families Workers They said they were: Flexible

• ‘Even now if I feel anything, a problem, all I gotta do is ring [worker] and she deals with it’ F1

 

Able to offer all kinds of practical and emotional help and suggestions for alternative ways of doing things:

 • ‘She rings me up to say ‘well done for going to school’ F4

• ‘I was in trouble with claiming {benefit] at that point and they said speak to [the worker] …and he gives us loads of opportunities, first off he got me onto the Princes Trust (B1F5)  

• Yeah, he got me into kick start because I felt my GCSEs were my biggest downfall’ (B2F5)

• Allow the service users to set the pace: • I think the last few months I would probably have had a

breakdown if I didn’t have [this worker] one sane person there in the corner saying, you know, saying perhaps you should try this…’ F3

 • Offer clear action plans, very intensive intervention • Go the extra mile: • Things like ringing in the evenings, outside their working

ours, or more prosaically:• ‘A kick up the backside’ (F5)

• Offer mediation and advocacy:

• ‘…I choose the wrong words in the wrong places and stuff, so [the worker] does a lot of, she comes to these team around the family meetings and she puts my view across without me having to do it ‘ F3

•  Accessed other forms of additional help and resources:– parenting courses (see above) , parenting mentors, a children’s center

• Available, comfortable and easy to be with and very importantly, they were seen as friendly:

•  • [I felt totally] …secure and safe…I was comfortable with him.

The dog liked him as well. ’(F3)

Drops in the Ocean 

• The backdrop to those families troubles, though, were in nearly every case, overwhelming: mental health problems (in nearly all the families), physical health, disability, drugs, separations, abuse, absent fathers and so on.

• ‘I’ve got five children altogether…Ellis who has just been diagnosed with autism, Nathan was shortly diagnosed with autism, ADHD and ODD..we’ve had a whole lot going on with our family in the last two months…we lost my Dad at the beginning of February, my Mum’s sectioned under the mental health act and we did inherit an an additional extra needs child….’ F3

 

• I went through a hill where I went down from depression F4

• I have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, so have my children, due to 12, 13 years of domestic violence…my oldest son was [also] becoming really abusive..I was really just getting iller and iller…she [worker] came due to this horrendous breakdown I had F6

• However the ‘precipitating’ reason for referral was 5/6 about absenteeism from school, and for 2 young men, unemployment.

•  Isolation was another prevalent theme, with the mothers here particularly experiencing high degrees of isolation from community or friends: not really moving outside of the home and the family.

• Some issues – e.g. Post traumatic mental health issues in F6 - were enormous and very complex. A wide range of other services were involved and it is unlikely that the TFW was able to do much more than scratch the surface.

A different kind of service to the current welfare systems?

 The troubled families workers were held in contrast to, particularly, social work and social workers, who tended to be seen as too formal and/or policing (though there also other stories).

• ‘Well the difference is they are much more down to earth,…you are obviously aware of the fact that if they saw anything unjust they would go back and say, but they do present as being much more… down to earth, understanding and real. I mean there is a kind of stigma with social services…my son’s right it is like the police almost…but [troubled families] just come to help and you can’t really say anything bad about that’ F6

• ‘[at first] we felt like it was a social worker…we thought we were all in trouble, but like no, like it wasn’t that… we realized they weren’t social workers they were just there to help the family…’ F5

 • ‘I hope that the government can see these schemes are

really important because the part that was the best part was that he’s not a social worker’ F3

Who is listening?

• Though the interviews offered examples of good and bad schools, health workers etc., there was an overall picture of unresponsive state sector organisations: ‘not listening’,

 • ‘I went through my health visitor and there was a lot of

tooing and froing…and they sort of passed, they just sort of pass you off really…’ F3

 • ‘There wasn’t a relationship, really, with the school, until

[the worker] came along. I was saying things and they didn’t appear to be hearing what I was saying at all, it was going round in circles .’F3

A service able to listen? Form a relationship?• Isolation and connection. Above/below we have

included in the list of ‘structural problems’ the notion of loneliness/isolation/ and by implication the opposite- connection, relationship and so on. Because of my own work on issues such as recognition and the role of relationships in well-being, these kinds of links stood out in the transcripts. Social work literature generates a substantial body of work, and has over a long period, on relationship based practice, (e.g Ruch at al. 2010) but in times of austerity and neo-liberal service definitions acknowledges that statutory work – (far more ‘policing’) than relationship based work is possible. (Featherstone et al 2014) These troubled families workers were more able to offer something akin to relationship-based practice.

• ‘I think I had a letter through my door saying ‘hi, my name’s [worker] and obviously telling me about what she does…and basically from there we’ve always had that connection, we’ve always been pretty close…we have these good long talks that last for ages, like hours, oh my God but it’s good though cos we let everything out…’ F4

• ‘I know that round here there are loads of parents who feel isolated and alone F3

• ‘I just, this is going to sound terrible, it’s like someone holding your hand, you know you feel the trust…you have someone there who trusts you, believes in you, everything like that, whereas if you’re by yourself you always second judge yourself, and it can destroy a person ‘ F5

• ‘If I said to [the worker] what I really need is to get out and have a coffee then she would take me out for a coffee, and when you are really down and desperate it means a whole lot just to get out of the situation even for 10 minutes’ F6

Outcomes- •  Seeing problems from other perspectives than their

own, and from broader perspectives generally

 • Sometimes I only see things from my point of view and

she helps broaden the picture F3

 • Confidence in speaking and ability to sort things out, able

to face school, go to meetings, motivation, self-belief,

• Someone believes in me, and like I’m glad she believes in me and I didn’t used to believe in myself until she told me I could do it, but she knew I can…

 

• Someone believes in me, and like I’m glad she believes in me and I didn’t used to believe in myself until she told me I could do it, but she knew I can…

• So basically, um, she made me believe in myself more F4 • ‘They helped mum a lot…her confidence…since they’ve

been on the scene even with the schools and everything like that, she’s getting confidence’ F5

• Improving the quality of (family) life:

And I have changed loads. And it’s like more fun now . It’s not just like being a Mum now, it’s like fun, just stupid things like playing football with them, and like digging the garden, it’s just fun. It’s just the best time ever of being a Mum..’ F1

•  Breaking down isolation, through a variety of methods, including connecting mothers up to groups, as in F1, 2 and 3, and giving them the confidence to move in the outside world:

• My world was the front door and the back garden…didn’t want to go anywhere else…he gave me the right encouragement to get through the door F3

• Achieving practical outcomes- sorting out problems, usually by liaison, with benefits, housing, schools (see above)

For further analysis…issues of shame and recognition

The two quotes above on the worker believing in the service user- telling them they could ‘do it’ , seem to relate to a body of work around people’s need for recognition for well-being ( Honneth, 1995 Fraser and Honneth, 2003).

My own recent work has been in relation to this and its, arguably, diametric opposite: shame. There were statements here around stigma and shame: e.g.

• It was like I was embarrassed by my son’s behaviour and I was disgusted, thinking if I spoke to anyone they’re going to feel ‘what a crap mother… F6

• Similar feelings are expressed in relation to work with all service users and in other commentaries and evaluations of ‘troubled families’ (Levitas 2014)

• The relationship between poverty, shame, stigma and recognition would benefit from more research and analysis (Frost, L. 2015 forthcoming; Chase and Walker, 2013). It is also interesting in relation to isolation and not wanting to leave the house and partake of the outside world.

•  

Gender; self-blaming Mothers and fathers. There was clearly a family impact in giving mothers some time for themselves- like in F1 and 6. But where are the fathers in these narratives? Why aren’t they being drawn in to this? How social work does and doesn’t engage with men in family work has a body of interesting research undertaken now (Scourfield, 2006), and some of this might be useful for ‘Troubled families’ analysis.

• Gender matching. The woman working with young woman in F4 and a man working with young men in F5 seem to have gone well- ‘someone to talk to’ v ‘someone to help me get a CV together , find a job’ etc. The workers were able to respond to gendered versions of ‘help’- perhaps, or perhaps simply different ones. Were there also parent, young person and child versions of help that needed different kinds of responses?

• There was a significant amount of self-critical focus on their own parenting, self-belief, motivation etc. by the families themselves – in other words ‘if only they themselves changed…’ They were not always as ready or perhaps able to articulate a more stringent critique of the severe structural problems inflecting their lives. This seems to capture the ambivalent nature of the notion of self-reliance, ‘empowerment’ etc. which contain the potential for both self- help and self-blame, when located in a highly unequal structure. It does also raise the question of why agencies are not paying more attention.

Evidential shortfalls and/or successes

• Need for longitudinal studies to more fully capture the multifaceted and complex dynamics and situations that impact multi-directionally in a family unit over time.

• Issues with comparative data and discretionary criteria and lack of control groups (Gregg, 2010)

• The families who were interviewed talked of the difference the key worker and family intervention programme had made. ‘Getting people there’ and ‘enthusiastic about key workers’, flexibility and responsiveness.  

• In this respect it is an interesting reflection on the key worker role in the family’s life that a key outcome appeared to be the confidence and resilience that working with a key worker created for individuals within the family and the family as a whole. ‘Drops in the ocean’

• Parr (2015) the relationship key. Not policing families. ‘A different kind of service able to do something slightly different’.

• The empowerment that resulted from this increase in confidence and resilience enabled the families to feel that they were making positive changes for themselves rather than having things done to or for them. ‘Outcomes’ and ‘Seeing problems form other perspectives’

• Partnership work and communication also important

Summary• Policy success v practical success (is the former being

heralded at the expense of the latter)?

• What works locally instead of what works?

• What is success?

• ‘…it would probably cost the government a whole heap of money, but you know if everyone who was going through a bad patch, because a lot of people don’t have support and stuff…everyone goes through bad times, don’t they..Yeah so maybe [what is needed] is more awareness and more ease of access to people who aren’t getting referred for whatever reason. Just because someone’s kids aren’t getting arrested doesn’t mean they aren’t having a shitty time…’ F3

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