Keeping families together :
preventing family breakdown
It is part of Orchard House's statement of purpose that, wherever it is possible to make it safe, children should be cared for by their parents at home.
We know that some parents may need help to care for their children safely. Often these families fall through the gaps, and their difficulties don't always fit with either the NHS treatments offered, or the other services that might be available. We offer help, support and intervention for families both in the community (across the South West and in Wales) and in Orchard House. You can read about Orchard House's role in trying to address injustice in the system in the following Guardian articles: The catch-22 that stops young mothers getting help to keep their baby and The young mothers trapped in a cycle of having babies removed.
Orchard House can be commissioned by local authorities, schools, children's centres or the Courts to provide a package of evidence-based support and therapy in order to explore every last avenue in keeping a family together.
Caring Dads
Orchard House is now an accredited provider of the Caring Dads Programme.
Caring dads is an international, evidence-based group programme for fathers that works towards preventing the reoccurrence of domestic violence and child maltreatment. Caring Dads is devoted to ensuring the safety and well-being of some of our communities’ most vulnerable children through working with fathers (including biological, step, and common-law) who have been abusive, neglectful, or violent in their families or who are deemed to be at high-risk for these behaviours.
Evidence
An evaluation of the Caring Dads Programme (NSPCC, 2016) has shown that fathers and partners reported fewer incidents of domestic abuse after completing the Caring Dads programme. Risks to children reduced because fathers generally found being a parent less stressful and interacted better with their children after they had attended the programme. There were pre to post group reductions in parenting stress and level of hostility, indifference, and rejection as reported by fathers and reductions in domestic violence victimisation, depression, and anxiety as reported by mothers. Changes in identified domains were found to persist over six months and were well in excess of changes made by comparison group fathers over a similar time period.
The Programme
The Caring Dads group programme runs for two hours, one evening per week for 17 weeks. This group offers a unique opportunity for up to 12 men to connect as fathers.
The programme will support fathers to:
Develop skills to cope in healthy ways with frustrating situations.
Understand how different fathering strategies and choices affect children.
Increase their awareness of controlling, abusive and neglectful attitudes, and behaviours.
Be provided with strategies to strengthen the father child relationship.
Eligibility
This programme is designed to meet the needs of fathers who have been identified as abusive in their families, it is not designed for fathers needing more general parenting support. Examples of eligible fathers include:
Fathers who have physically or emotionally abused their children
Fathers who are at risk of maltreating their children
Fathers who have an over-bearing, controlling style of interaction with their child
Fathers who have been abusive towards the child’s mother, including those who have separated but continue to be in frequent hostile conflict.
Fathers who have abandoned one or more children and moved onto another family and are at risk of abusing or abandoning other children.
The fathers must have regular supervised or unsupervised contact with at least one of their children (0-16). A clinical intake interview will be completed following referral to determine suitability.
Exclusion Criteria
Men are not eligible if a primary concern in perpetration of child sexual abuse
Significant language or literacy issues
Fathers needing general parenting support but are at low risk of abuse and have strong positive connections with their child and respectful cooperative relationships with the child’s mother.
Significant alcohol and/or substance misuse. Those who are actively engaged in treatment or can maintain abstinence on the day of the group may be considered appropriate.
Fathers who are in the midst of a family court dispute over custody of their children, where there may be imminent loss of contact.
Referrals
Referrals are accepted from professionals. Self-referrals are also accepted; however, it is a requirement that another agency is involved and are willing to remain involved for the duration of the programme.
We accept referrals from:
Social workers
Probation
CAFCASS
Solicitors
Domestic Abuse Services
Mental Health Services
Self-referrals
Time and Venue
Canon Lodge, Canon Street, Taunton, Somerset, TA1 1SW
Tuesdays 6-8pm
The next programme will commence Summer 2023
Programme Cost
The programme costs £1500, this covers all aspects of the programme including an intake assessment, 16 x 2-hour group sessions, 1x individual session with the referring professional, and a final report.
How to Make a Referral
If you would like to discuss a possible referral, please contact Mandi Rees on 01823 351785 or email us at Caringdads@orchardhousefac.co.uk.
You can download a referral form below. Please send the completed form to Caringdads@orchardhousefac.co.uk.
Circle of security
The Circle of Security® is a creative new programme designed to improve the developmental pathway of children and their parents. It is a video-based intervention that strengthens parents’ abilities to observe and improve their caregiving skills. Each week of ‘Circle of Security parenting’ builds upon the previous week. It gives parents a way of seeing the different attachment needs of their children (the COS map). Specifically, parents learn that children need to feel safe and supported in their exploration; reassured that their primary caregiver is there to comfort and protect them; and that their carer can take charge in a kind way.
Our Parenting Intervention Workers are fully trained to deliver the programme and has extensive experience in providing it to families where the difficulties are complex and entrenched. She has adapted it to families where abuse and neglect is known to have occurred, managing the therapeutic needs of the family and the safeguarding concerns around the children.
Circle of Security has been very useful for:
Families where the children are at risk of harm because of poor emotional care
Where the parents' unresolved trauma or attachment history is impacting upon their availability to their children and placing them at risk
improving the ability of the parents to provide a positive emotional experience to their children in contact, even if they cannot provide safe full time care to them
Psychotherapy
Orchard House are aware that many families have complex and expensive psychological and psychiatric assessments which make detailed and extensive recommendations about therapeutic need. Tragically, services that can meet such needs are few and far between. Parents rarely meet the criteria for mental health services and few other teams have the specialist expertise to work with such complexity. We are able to offer parents the opportunity to engage in the therapy that meets their needs and to become the parents that their children need them to be.
Therapeutic placements
Orchard House can provide therapeutic parenting assessments for families when parents have had difficulty parenting their children. Many of the parents who come to Orchard House have themselves had poor parenting and have experienced physical, emotional and sexual abuse. The difficulties that they experience as parents have developed as a result of the profound effects of the abuse that they have suffered.
Therapeutic parenting assessments are led jointly by a Clinical Psychologist and a Social Worker and are based on comprehensive psychological formulations and tailored evidence-based interventions carried out by skilled and experienced clinicians.
Therapeutic placements use attachment theory and models of emotional and psychological development to support parents recover and learn to understand the emotional language of their child.