Risk Support: Working together to support families with multiple needs where interventions have not produced change

The THRIVE Framework for system change (Wolpert et al., 2019) encourages the recognition of the needs of children, young people and families who are at risk of adverse and harmful experiences such as family breakdown, school exclusion, criminality, child sexual exploitation etc, and where CAMHS and other agencies have been unable to bring about positive change. CAMHS treatment may have been tried and found to be ineffective, or the child, young person or family are not “treatment ready”. Often these families are intensively supported by CAMHS but the risks cannot be reduced. There is usually a high level of professional anxiety in these cases and collaborative interagency working is sometimes challenged by differing opinions in the professional network about what needs to be done.

Upon completing this training module, attendees will be able to:

• Understand the difference between risk support, safeguarding and crisis care;

• Know which children, young people and families fit within the Getting Risk Support needs based grouping;

• Learn the principles of Risk Support work, and;

• Become more confident in using methods to support effective multi-agency working to support children, young people and families who don’t engage with help.

Who is best to attend?

This module is best suited to staff who work on the front line, in areas such as youth justice, school inclusions, community policing, education, social care, specialist CAMHS, youth service providers, housing support offices and looked after children services.