Outreach Services
A recent development has been to offer short-term placements to nominated teachers so that they can have direct experience of the Marlborough model. The aim of this skills exchange has been to enable teachers to return to their school and set up a multi family group within the school. This is for children developing worrying behaviours that if not checked would lead to risk of exclusion in the future. The service provided is not dependent on the physical space at the Marlborough and so time taken from referral to placement can be speeded up.
Those who benefit from the satellite service are
- Children whose behaviour puts them at risk of exclusion.
- Parents who feel unable at present to understand, educate, support and challenge their children
What is the Marlborough Education Centre Outreach Multi-family Model?
The MarlboroughOutreach Model is a school-centred method of tackling repeating problems and bringing about change. Parents and children help other parents and children to break out of downward spirals of underachievement, disruption and exclusion. The process is not simply training in parenting. It is monitored and supervised by teachers who are also family therapists, trained to understand and treat the blocks to parenting which people often experience.
The method works in families with children aged 5-15, thus covering primary and secondary schooling. Success has been measured ultimately in improved behaviour and academic achievement, and fewer exclusions from school.
First used in London, its demonstrable effectiveness and cost-effectiveness have led to its replication in Centres within the UK and in Denmark and Norway. Ways of 'rolling out' the method into school and other sites are currently being explored. Some parents’ views of their experience of multi-family groups in schools
- “The children, as well as me, were looking forward to the meetings. We felt like an enlarged family”
- “I have changed. My strength as a mother has blossomed”
- “My son’s behaviour in school has become very positive. His attention span, concentration and attitude to school have all improved”.
The Early Intervention Worker Team
This is a small team of Mental Health Workers who now deliver Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services directly in most of the Westminster schools. Their activities are already being highly valued particularly in relation to their accessibility, flexibility and speed of response.