Approaches to Working with Children and Families: A Review of the Evidence for Practice

Abstract

This article explores a range of approaches to working with children and families within Children’s Services and Children’s Social Care, in a UK local authority context. There are a variety of established approaches, supported by different concepts and theories. Given the substantial recent and developing changes in the political, social and economic context for supporting families in need, collating academic and practical evidence to inform both theory and decision-making are vital. The article has a practice focus for Children’s Services, but it is also relevant and has implications for a much wider readership. Evidence was gathered through a purposive and rapid review and aggregated with practice evidence from various sources. An array of issues is considered relating to the context, theory, application, implementation and evaluation of taking one or several approaches. Overall, there is a very limited evidentiary basis, either from research or local authority practice, for adopting any one, wholesale approach to working with children and families in a local authority context over another, but there is emerging evidence of the benefits that certain models and approaches could have, and anecdotally the decision to adopt one formal model appears to be increasing.