Bedford Row Family Project

The idea for this initiative was born out of:

a.	Careful analysis of the Research Report 'Voices of Families Affected by Imprisonment', which showed that approx 80% of comments by participants in the research concerned distress caused by social rejection, children's suffering, domestic violence, poor health, trauma from shocks and tragedies, dangers within the community, poverty, misuse of drink and drugs, and related matters.
b.	A keen interest shown by people who have been involved in for Project many years to use their experience to assist other people who are in distress because of imprisonment and related factors.

The lived experience of people most affected by imprisonment and the critical reflection of the leadership group combined to give direction to the type of training that is needed for Bedford Row staff to respond in a sensitive, meaningful, and effective manner to the very serious issues presented.

The training is specifically aimed to work with families who may be debilitated by many generations of addiction, imprisonment, involvement in crime, feuding etc. possibly with a history of children being in care, and who may have suffered multiple tragedies and bereavements.

At the end of the course (or, indeed, as people are being trained during it) the number of Bedford Row staff who:

1)	Understand what the person in crisis is going through,
2)	Can offer immediate assistance in the crisis presented, and
3)	Has both the life experience and professional know-how, training, and tenacity to follow through on issues towards a satisfactory and long term solution, with particular focus on children

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• Significant alleviation of current distress and provision of an empathic and understanding time/space to explore options in what is usually a very distressing time.
• Identification of difficult emotions such as guilt, shame and anger and utilisation of such emotions particularly anger in a positive way so that they do not get in the way of positive experiences in people's lives.
• Build up of confidence and self esteem, a sense of hope, and an ability to cope.
• Very practical and direct support with issues such as inadequate housing, school placement, etc. etc.
• Widening of horizons to include an appreciation of what, in particular, children are experiencing, and learning skills on how to offer help in a constructive and nurturing way.
• Increase in relationship building skills to form and maintain relationships that are significant and nurturing.
• Early assessment of needs so that appropriate and timely interventions can be offered in partner agencies if such are identified and appropriate.
• Inculcation of a sense of belonging in, and towards, Bedford Row Family Project.
• Ongoing involvement in research and evaluation of how the Project goes about its work, this being done as work is proceeding in the Project.

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3. Principal Elements

a.	Emotional The emotional elements of students' experience throughout the duration of the training will be attended to so that graduates will be confident and competent in dealing with the emotional dimension that, it is expected, will be an integral part of the day-to-day practice in the field. These emotional elements can be summed up as follows: Trust and fear, recognising fear, link between fear and anger, the role of joy, the experience of joy, the importance of joy in healing, patience, the role of 'time' in anger and frustration, dealing with uncertainty, anger, the role of anger, how anger manifests, using anger constructively and proactively, self care – emotional effect of work, attending to own needs.
b.	Skills There are numerous skills which need to be practiced constantly throughout the training in order to equip graduates with the competences necessary to assist people to cope with unexpected situations, ease their distressing crises in life, and ultimately effect positive change. Skills would include making genuine relationships and enhancing them, teamwork, how to work as a team, morale, the dynamics of groups, identification of each person's role, maintaining the role, challenging own, and others', roles, essentials of listening skills – basic and advanced, development of empathic ways of working, difference between empathy and sympathy, effective advocacy, working with statutory and voluntary agencies, necessity of building relationships with agencies, uniqueness of community leadership, good modelling, leadership in action.
c.	Principles/Ethos Awareness of societal/ethical issues is very important for any practitioners working in the field. The following would be important in such training: Description of communitarian models of working with people, compassion, purpose of, what gets in the way of compassion. Power issues in society and in helping professions, affects of power, how power manifests in diverse circumstances, how power corrupts, responsible use of power. Socio-political contradictions, principles of non-violence, affects of racism, the role of poverty in society, challenging 'the system', the essentials of radical action. Also, the role of crime in society, what a crime-free society would look like who would gain and who would lose in a crime-free society.
d.	Models/Methodologies of Therapeutic Intervention There are many different methodologies which have developed over the years which need to be applied in different situations. Solution focused brief therapy – what does 'brief' mean? – motivational interviewing, strengths based work (particularly in parenting). Types of therapeutic approaches and integration of same, 'person centred' counselling, CBT, emotions – thoughts – behaviour. Practical crisis intervention work, different types of, the role of the helper when dealing with someone in crisis and/or in chronic distress. Enhancing client safety through considerations of choice of language and dialogue, uniqueness of each encounter.
e.	Educational It is important that students receive specific knowledge of the disciplines most relevant to the work to be done. These include subjects such as child development, child protection in families where criminality is prevalent, 'the role of shame in growth' vs. 'toxic shame', development of conscience, attachment theory, the phenomenon we call ADHD + other factors that impair normal development e.g. foetal alcohol syndrome. Other specific subjects would include good, common sense, health and safety principles in family support work. Of interest to include would be input from ex-prisoners, prison officers, Gardaν, social workers, addiction counsellors, etc. and how all affect work in the field.
f.	Practical Practical elements such as planning, estimating expenditure of money, estimating how much time to allocate to events, programmes, activities, etc. would be important, as would report writing, filing, using modern technology to its optimum, following office procedures correctly, security, link between good office procedures and boundaries.
g.	Applications This is how a. to f. above are applied in the field. For example, boundaries, confidentiality, and the necessity of 'good will' discourse. Also, good design, creativity, conservation of energy, working hard while preserving enthusiasm and commitment, maintaining liveliness, vitality, spontaneity, creativity, and the role of meaning in good design. Problem solving – gleaning the essentials of issues – examining own prejudices, sticking to the point, 'the feedback loop' i.e. encouragement of feedback from clients to alter plans/programmes, checking relevance of work, importance of wisdom. Learning the skills of challenging the organisation that employs the worker would be important.

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Bedford Row Family Project believes that the best and most effective way to address the difficult issue of family involvement in crime and the inevitable subsequent involvement in imprisonment and all the distress that that entails is to facilitate responsible, compassionate, and caring people from the communities most affected by imprisonment to utilise their wisdom, insight, and strength to bring about long-term change in such families and 'break the cycle'.

This training initiative is designed to enable that long-term change to begin.

Following a successful 'first run', and learning as we go along, it is planned to initiate a second run, thereby further increasing the number of people with the qualifications and life experience necessary to undertake this important work on an ongoing basis into the future.