Effective Intervention to Promote Family Wellness
Current initiatives, internationally, emphasise the prevention of abuse and the enhancement of parenting potential of families and the community. This paper reports research carried out in Australia designed to evaluate the impact of family support interventions by comparing the views of families and their support workers with respect to the perceived benefits and outcomes of interventions. Families were studied over a six month period using a pre-post-test design, incorporating quantitative and qualitative approaches in the methodology.
The paper will discuss key findings including: needs and strengths identified; trends in problem reduction; parent's and children's engagement with the service; changes in parents’ level of stress, problem solving and coping, and understandings of help seeking from the perspectives of parents and professionals.
The implications of the findings for evidence based practice and policy will be discussed.