Outreach Work with Parents at the Pottenstein Social Education and Care Center

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Duration: January 2016 to December 2016

The Pottenstein Socio-Pedagogical Supervision Centre (SBZ), which provides full or part-time residential care for around 70 children and young people, has been working increasingly with outreach work with parents since 2012. The aim of this approach is to provide families with long-term support in recognising and using their own resources and abilities so that they can better support their children while they are in out-of-home care and are able to look after them themselves again more quickly.

The research team analysed this concept of outreach work with parents and its implementation in practice with regard to the opportunities and challenges. To this end, 18 guided interviews were conducted with subject-specific experts, parents, children and young people at the Pottenstein SBZ and analysed using content analysis. The Research Goals were to find out how parental work is organised and what changes can be brought about.

The Research Results show that the families surveyed largely recognise a very satisfactory effect of parenting work. Parents define parent work as a setting for support, learning and dealing with problems through encouragement and critical reflection.

Frequently mentioned problem areas that existed in the families before the start of parent work are excessive demands, violence and conflictual relationships between parents and children. School problems and a lack of physical and mental health in the children and young people living together as a family are also experienced as stressful.

Whilst the parents learn to create a regular structure in the course of parental work, the children learn to adhere to rules in their external placement. However, children and adolescents in particular tend to think guiltily about the problems they had previously experienced.

According to the experts interviewed, parental work can mean a quicker return of the children and young people placed in care or enable them to make contact with their families. They see the opportunity of parental work in a lasting change in the family system.

Research Goals

Identify the opportunities and challenges of the concept of outreach work with parents
Visualise the assessments and feelings of the affected families
Identify change processes of those affected
Evaluate the practical implementation of outreach work with parents in order to stimulate a process of reflection in practice