Working in Partnership with Family Carers

The relationship between paid workers, family carers and service users is a complex one and is loaded with potential for conflict. The best outcome for the service user is often hampered by poor relationships, these being characterised by competitiveness, resentment, guilt, perceived ‘non caring’ and ‘interfering’.

This one day course aims to help learners understand the potentially challenging dynamic within this relationship and as a result, work in a more empathic and collaborative partnership. Participants will explore a range of issues related to family dynamics and how the service user functions within this. This course will provide many ideas on how to engage with family carers in a positive way and what to do when tensions develop.

The course covers the objectives of the topic ‘Working in Partnership with Family Carers’ within the Learning Disability Knowledge Set and includes:

• Families, their role and impact
• The Law and Good Practice
• Understanding family carers
• Working well with family carers
• Working in partnership
• Sharing information
• Support for family carers
• Managing conflicts of interest

Learning objectives:

By the end of this course participants should understand:

• What is meant by the ‘family’ and ‘family carer’
• How the contemporary family is diverse-the range of compositions incl. partner
and fiend as family
• The need to understand the family in terms of culture, religion, values etc.
• What is meant by the ‘dysfunctional’ family, the different emotions that may exist:
        -anger
        -resentment
        -guilt
        -blame
• The behaviours that may be demonstrated:
        -compensation
        -possessiveness
        -over-protection
        -withdrawal
        -abuse
etc.
• How the worker’s personal experience, beliefs and feelings can contaminate
the relationship
• The law, policy & good practice relating to the relationships, rights & responsibilities
• Issues of loss and bereavement in the present and past & how to access appropriate
support
• How family carers can make a positive contribution to the support of the person
including the process of Person Centred Planning
• How to work in a cooperative way with family members
• How to develop harmonious relationships; respecting the interdependent roles
• Setting and maintaining appropriate boundaries
• Working in an empathic Person Centred way
• Sharing information appropriately
• How to respect the limits of openness; the need for clarity around confidentiality
• Inclusion and encouragement
• The limits of dialogue & keeping the person’s interest at the centre of the relationship
• The need to keep focused on who is the client and how to access appropriate
support; thus avoiding conflict of role
• What is Assertiveness and the need to be assertive with family carers
• The need to take an objective and professional view in terms of family conflict
• How to respond when the behaviour of a family carer hampers the growth of a
service user or indeed is being abusive

Training methods:

• Tutor presentations
• OHP/PowerPoint
• Role play
• Small group work
• Pairs work
• Chalk & talk
• Word shower method
• Handouts

CP00/0.0