Context 53
February 2001 - Family therapists in designated posts
Issue editors: Margaret Bennett, Cynthia Maynerd and Maire Stedman
Family therapists in designated posts: Angela Sheppard Fidler and Cynthia Maynerd
"In the autumn of 1993, a handful of family therapists met to share information and support one another. We were, on the whole, former social workers in newly created posts and the only family therapists in our respective NHS trusts. Although we realised we were a significant voice, there were also accompanying vulnerabilities and risks of isolation, particularly in relation to professional issues and career development."
Scaling the wall - a family perspective of incarceration: Carol Barnes>
"Is imprisonment society's worst nightmare? It is the third highest stressor on a life events stress inventory. When an adolescent is given a prison sentence, society often views the family as a causal factor. Serious crimes usually attract intensive media attention and the resulting adverse publicity can affect the perpetrator's family for the rest of their lives"
The joint family consultation clinic: David Amias, Sue McNab, Jelena Manjolovic and Karen Partridge
"In our work in child and adult services, we often encounter situations in which families present with multiple problems which cross the boundaries of our different agencies. The joint family consulation clinic was set up to address this issue by bridging the gap between child and adult services for parents with a mental health need."
Psychosocial aspects of paediatric liver transplantation: Sarah Helps and Gerti Wilford
"In this article we describe the involvement of the psychosocial team in the pre-liver transplant assessment of children and their families. We meet families in an abnormal situation when they are faced with tremendous and often conflicting stressors that would place immense demands on any family's resources."
Developing a family therapy post in a hospital old age mental health team: Eleanor Anderson
"Health advances mean that people now live longer and the older population is growing. Work with older adults is a developing field that is becoming more recognised. Finding a shared voice with other therapeutic disciplines and the families themselves I continue to find, five years on, challenging and satisfying"
The refugee skills exchange project: Maire Stedman
A description of the work of a project in the London borough of Newham which uses the "just therapy " approach to therapy developed at the Family Centre in New Zealand. This approach "attempts to demystify therapy (and therapists) so that it can be practiced by a wider range of people including those with skills and community experience or cultural knowledge"
Co-therapy in CAMHS: Erica Filby and Ros Walker
A conversation between two therapists describing how they co-constructed different ways of working with families.
As if...an excursion into adult mental health: Robert Lafon
"Many shared our enthusiasm for emphasizing health and recovery rather than accepting the managemen of symptoms as the main goal...Some would see these ideas as exciting yet a little too unsettling while minority saw our respectfully playful irreverence as iconoclastic"
Family therapy in an adolescent unit: Chris Gaskell
A description of the work of a sole family therapist working in an adolescent unit in Bristol caring for young people from 13 to 18.
Coming out of nothing: Jeremy Woodcock
A description of the work of the Medical Foundation for the Care of the Victims of Torture and the role of family therapy within it.
Systemic thinking in an eating disorder team: Margaret Bennett, Georgina Bell, Maureen Sanders, Diana Cassell and Christine Shute
"For a family, joining a 'club' where one's eligibility as a member depends on one of your children having an eating disorder must be devastating. It is certainly not a club which one would strive to join or be anxious to enrol in. It is certainly a club that familes struggle to leave as soon as possible."
The family trauma centre, Belfast
A description of the work of the first family therapy led service in Northern Ireland.
Clinical placements for trainee family therapists: Damian McCann and Margaret Bennett.
An article commissioned by the group of Family Therapists in Designated Posts in 1998.
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