Paper
Adolescent Multi Agency Support Service - Islington Children and Families, Children’s Services
- issue: Issue 1 / 2010
- authors: Kim Lawson, Nina Stevens, Garry Richardson
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abstract
Introduction: integrated service development
In May 2007, Islington launched the Adolescent Multi Agency Support Service (AMASS), a new and innovative wrap around service offering specialist interventions to improve the outcomes of vulnerable children and adolescents, where universal and single agency targeted services have failed to achieve sustainable changes.
AMASS is a dedicated multi-agency team (including behaviour support workers, outreach workers, psychologist, psychiatrist, senior social worker, substance misuse worker and advisory teachers) which works with case holding social workers and fostering social workers to improve outcomes for young people at significant risk of social exclusion.
AMASS represents a move in Islington towards establishing shared and evidenced based methods of effective interventions with adolescents with complex needs and high levels of challenging behaviour.
Aims
The aim of AMASS is to provide highly intensive packages for the young person and their parent/carer to:
- Support and maintain the child in their family home, where without an intensive package of support, it is reasonable to expect a family breakdown.
- Support a child in their foster placement, where without an intensive package of support, it is reasonable to expect a placement breakdown.
- Enable a child who is already looked after to return home with the support of an AMASS intervention.
Eligibility Criteria
AMASS work with
1. Young people aged 10-16 years
2. Open ICS and allocated Children and Families cases
3. On the edge of care or at risk of in-house foster placement breakdown i.e. having offered all available universal and targeted support services/provisions
4. Exhibiting extremely challenging behaviour including:
- Persistent (weekly) and enduring (6 months or longer) violent and aggressive interpersonal behaviour AND/OR
- A significant risk of harm to self or to others e.g. self harming, substance misuse, sexual exploitation, absconding
And where for many the following are often key factors:
- Exclusion or at significant risk of school exclusion
- High levels of non attendance at school
- With an offending history or at risk of offending
- Previous episodes on the Child Protection Register
- Previous episodes of being looked after
Explanation of the model and framework
AMASS uses a model of intervention ICON, that was piloted and proven successful with positive outcomes across Islington Children's Services from 2005 - 2007. ICON is a framework that stands for Intensive, Community, Outreach, Network: this acronym attempts to capture the core components of the approach.
- Intensive: minimum of two sessions per week with parent/carer, with weekly Group Supervision for the ICON worker.
- Community: support is delivered at home and where parents/carers are able to engage .
- Outreach: offering flexibility, active engagement and out of hours support.
- Network: working families and carer and professional support networks.
The model has core assumptions that are imperative to the effectiveness of intervention and reaching the desired changes, goals and improved outcomes:
- a way of working with parents/carers to empower them in the parenting of their child/young person, thereby increasing parent/carer responsibility;
- more effective parental authority will enable the young person to develop skills to cope with complexities within family, peer, school and the community systems;
- present/future focused and goal-oriented, that targets specific problem behaviours - behavioural approach;
- process that attempts to understand what is maintaining the problem behaviours within a systemic context (i.e. using the ecological model - individual, family, peer, school, community and network.
AMASS will be evaluated over two years against its provision across preventative services to families and children in need, maintaining placement stability and increased use of local in-house foster placements enabling children and young people who do need to become looked after to live closer community and positive networks. AMASS will also be monitoring the impact of its wrap around service by piloting an Outcomes framework based on the Every Child Matters five outcomes.
Contact details
For more information, contact the Adolescent Multi Agency Support Service team, Islington Children's Social Care, London Borough of Islington Council.
Kim Lawson, email: Kim.Lawson@islington.gov.uk
Nina Stevens, email: Nina.Stevens@islington.gov.uk
Garry Richardson, email: Garry.Richardson@islington.gov.uk