Making child mental health 'everybody's business': a training course for family support workers

This article provides an overview of the development and delivery of a mental health teaching and training programme offered to Family Support Workers (FSWs) working in a range of schools in an economically deprived part of Bedfordshire. The FSWs had received no prior teaching in the area of child mental health, or in ways of engaging and communicating with children and families. Both topics were considered crucial to their role. The training was delivered in two phases. Phase 1 consisted of 4 full days of teaching. Topics covered included (1) engaging children and families, (2) child development, (3) self-awareness, and (4) systemic thinking. Phase 2 was delivered through 'practice sets', which were held monthly for 4 months, and lasted 2 hours. These were used to develop the FSWs' theoretical understanding of the issues, and link this with their practice. The training was evaluated using a semistructured questionnaire. Results suggested that participants had changed the ways in which they engaged families and children. They were more able to adopt a collaborative, nonexpert, position which focused on empowering families to make decisions for themselves. This represented a significant shift in the way they worked. This process was enhanced by their more sophisticated level of understanding of child development and behaviour problems, which took into account the impact of wider systemic and relational factors and moved away from locating problems within individuals. Participants also demonstrated the ability to reflect on how their personal beliefs and experiences impacted on the work they undertook, and why this was important. Recommendations following the training included the need for regular, ongoing practice support, the need for the training to be more widely disseminated (e.g. to school staff), and the benefits of having clear descriptions of the roles and responsibilities of Family Support Workers.