Working with Non-Engaging Families

The critical role played by practitioners in engaging and communicating with families has been highlighted in findings from serious case reviews and is at the heart of many Early Help strategies.

Engaging families with high levels of need can be challenging though and the way we communicate with parents is often critical. This course aims to support practitioners to feel more confident in this task. It provides an opportunity to stand back from the detail of the work and reflect on how we engage in these relationships and what gets in the way of successful engagement.

Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course the learners should be able to:

• Understand the critical role of successful engagement in supporting families with high levels of need
• Understand the importance of engaging families to promote safeguarding and address risk
• Identify the underlying reasons that prevent successful engagement with parents, carers and families
• Identify the most common barriers to engagement for parents, carers and families
• Use a range of methods and tools which can help to support engagement with parents, carers and families
• Implement skills in their work to effectively and constructively challenge parents, carers and families
• Use positive communication strategies in their work with parents, carers and families
• Demonstrate a knowledge of strengths based approaches to working with parents/carers