Our Functional Family Therapy – Child Welfare (FFT-CW) team engaged a family recently with referral behaviour associated to Family Domestic Violence (FDV) i.e., allegations of punitive physical parenting, and child mental health needs.
The Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) had assessed this family risk to be high. The family are a blended family who were also amidst family law court proceedings. Through FFT-CW engagement we were able to navigate adult/family blame and introduced the narrative of adult/child ‘behaviour patterns’ within the family home.
Through their journey Dad and Mum demonstrated reflective practice and motivation to create change for their children. Dad and mum demonstrated the ability to use more effective authoritative parenting skills, which also supported the implementation of holistic family skills and behavioural responsibilities.
Dad and mum implemented a less reactive style of parenting and therefore were able to work together to make their family behavioural change.
The family stated at the end of therapy that all physical punitive parenting actions had ceased, and that there had been a positive shift in child behaviour and mental health wellbeing.
The children stated that when conflict did arise it wasn’t as frequent and better managed, and that both dad & mum were less angry. DCJ had reassessed family risk to be low and closed the family case midway through FFT-CW therapy.
Please contact fft-cw@nepeancommunity.org.au for more information about this program.