Working with Uncooperative Families
Last updated: October 7, 2008
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
This protocol aims to guide staff at all tiers of service provision in working with reluctant and uncooperative families. A worker’s purpose in making contact with a family varies depending on their role and their agency; workers need to use this protocol accordingly. Workers need to be clearly aware of the level of authority they represent and therefore how far they are required to engage with the family and aims to:
- assist workers in understanding the variety of ways in which noncooperation
- can be displayed by families
- help workers in understanding the causes of such responses
- increase awareness of strategies workers may be able to employ in
- order to reduce the likelihood of non cooperation
- help workers maintain control of situations and keep themselves safe
- help workers to be in a position to effectively assess the risk factors
- affecting children in the household.
N.B.
This protocol should be considered alongside workers professional code of conduct, information sharing policy and supervision policy in local procedures.
There can be a wide range of uncooperative behaviour by families towards professionals. From time to time all agencies will come into contact with families whose compliance is apparent rather than genuine, or who are more obviously reluctant, resistant or sometimes angry or hostile to their approaches.
In extreme cases, professionals can experience intimidation, abuse, threats of violence and actual violence. The child’s welfare should remain paramount at all times and where professionals are too scared to confront the family, they must consider what life is like for a child in the family.
All agencies should support their staff by:
- ensuring professionals are trained for the level of work they are undertaking;
- publishing a clear statement about unacceptable behaviour by those accessing their services (such as seen in hospitals and on public transport);
- providing training to enable staff to respond as safely as possible to risky or hostile behaviour in their target client group;
- supporting staff to work to their own professional code of conduct or their agency’s code of conduct when responding to risky or hostile behaviour in their client group.
