family support

'Would you have sandwiches for your tea every night?': older people's views of social care in Northern Ireland

Research produced as a result of a project which aimed to consult directly with older people to ascertain their views on all aspects of social care and report on the main findings.

SRC worked in partnership with Age NI staff and peer facilitators to recruit for and run three focus groups across NI. The focus groups were held in Belfast, Cookstown and Irvinestown. In total, twenty four older people attended the focus groups – two thirds male and one third female.

Intensive family support: the evidence

Paper that brings together the Action for Children evidence base on intensive family support services. It is collated under a number of themes:

- keeping children safe
- keeping young people safety at home/out of care
- keeping children out of custody
- keeping children healthy
- improving children's relationships
- savings to the state and communities
- improving educational attainment
- reducing anti-social behaviour
- housing stability

Preventing Crisis for Carers - The Moffat Project

The Moffat Charitable Trust “Preventing Crisis for Carers” project was been established to enable Princess Royal Trust for Carers centres to work with their local statutory partners, and other carers’ centres within their health board, to identify carers at the earliest possible stage and promote the development of good working practices around processes such as hospital discharge planning and carers’ assessments.

Independent Mental Capacity Advocate involvement in accommodation decisions and care reviews

The MCA Code of Practice says that the IMCA safeguard is intended for ‘those people who have little or no network of support, such as close family or friends, who take an interest in their welfare or no one willing or able to be formally consulted in decision-making processes’ (10.74). It provides guidance about when an IMCA should be instructed in cases where a person has some contact with family or friends

Understanding the needs of adults (particularly parents) regarding relationship support

Qualitative study that the DCSF commissioned Newcastle University and the Family and Parenting Institute to undertake. Issues identified include enhancing the understanding of how adults form and manage relationships; the relationship support needs of adults in different personal circumstances, and in a variety of relationship types; and to gather evidence which can guide the development of new policy initiatives to support adult couple relationships.

Disabled children's services national indicator 2009-10: local authority (LA) reports

A collection of disabled children's services national indicator reports setting out findings for each local authority (LA) area for which there was sufficient response from parents from the 2009-2010 survey to measure parental satisfaction of services for disabled children. Each report provides indicator and sub-indicator scores, as well as analysis of parents' comments relating to services in each of the following areas: health, education, and care and family support.

Going the extra mile: an evaluation of a residential unit for younger children provided by Aberlour Sycamore Service (full report)

Study detailing the philosophy and practice of a residential unit, underlining the importance of relationships, teamwork and a clearly articulated philosophy of care and highlighting the way the unit integrates with foster, education and therapeutic services.

International perspectives on parenting support: non-English language sources

This reports on a project to understand "what works" in parenting support, beyond the English language international evidence. English language literature was reviewed in 'What works in Parenting Support, (Moran, Ghate and van der Merwe 2004). This project focused on Denmark, France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands and aimed to: consider what works in parenting support; describe processes, models of delivery and underlying philosophies of provision; identify key messages to inform policy and practice in England.