Our Family Consultation service was launched during the global COVID-19 pandemic within a London borough in the UK. We continue to deliver sessions and consultations to families and social care professionals virtually. The service operates within the context of Children’s Social Services: it consists of a team of systemic family therapists and systemic practitioners. We create a space where families come together online to reflect with us on their difficulties, strengths, and relationships in order to explore possibilities of change. We involve the family’s social worker and other social care professionals in some of our consultations and sessions. In this chapter, we will present the challenges and our reflections on delivering a family consultation service virtually in the context of children’s safeguarding. We use case examples to demonstrate our learning while preserving the anonymity of participants. Some themes emerged as significant in our work in the family consultation service. It was important to be aware of ethical dilemmas around confidentiality when using family therapy with families who were engaged with the family court arena, and to remain flexible with how we used the reflecting team, especially with teenagers. We thought about how therapy endings were managed, both for the service users by including outsider witnesses to their transformations, and for members of the clinical team who moved on.

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Safeguarding Children in Uncertain Times: Delivering a Virtual Family Therapy Clinic Within Social Services

  • Rowland Coombes,
  • Maria Rizopoulou,
  • Rebecca Harvey

摘要

Our Family Consultation service was launched during the global COVID-19 pandemic within a London borough in the UK. We continue to deliver sessions and consultations to families and social care professionals virtually. The service operates within the context of Children’s Social Services: it consists of a team of systemic family therapists and systemic practitioners. We create a space where families come together online to reflect with us on their difficulties, strengths, and relationships in order to explore possibilities of change. We involve the family’s social worker and other social care professionals in some of our consultations and sessions. In this chapter, we will present the challenges and our reflections on delivering a family consultation service virtually in the context of children’s safeguarding. We use case examples to demonstrate our learning while preserving the anonymity of participants. Some themes emerged as significant in our work in the family consultation service. It was important to be aware of ethical dilemmas around confidentiality when using family therapy with families who were engaged with the family court arena, and to remain flexible with how we used the reflecting team, especially with teenagers. We thought about how therapy endings were managed, both for the service users by including outsider witnesses to their transformations, and for members of the clinical team who moved on.