family support

Think child, think parent, think family: a guide to parental mental health and child welfare

Guide about working with parents who have mental health problems and their children. It provides guidance on policy and practice and makes recommendations for key areas of professional education, workforce development and research. It also provides links to useful resources and contact details of relevant organisations.

Building character

Report of a research project which studied the development of character capabilities contributing to life chances and the factors influencing their development. It concludes that the early years are the critical years in this regard and that parents are, consequently, the principal character builders in society.

Effective interventions for complex families where there are concerns about, or evidence of, a child suffering significant harm (Safeguarding: briefing 1)

Briefing paper focusing on the effectiveness of interventions in complex child protection cases. Effectiveness here is defined as the prevention of further maltreatment or significant impairment to the child's development.

Improving social work in Scotland

Report that describes how well social work services are performing and what people who use services think about them. The messages are clear; the majority of people of all ages who use services and their carers have valued them and think they have made positive differences to their lives. Staff who provide services are committed and look for ways to improve the services they offer to people.