The Work of a Family Centre
The occurrence of emotional abuse is under-reported and underdiagnosed. This ยฎnding was conยฎrmed by the evaluation of families referred to a North London Family Centre specializing in child protection work. Emotional abuse was rarely the reason for a child being placed on the child protection register, but was nevertheless described as a major concern by referrers. This paper describes the work of a family centre that opened in 1989 as a multiagency project for the assessment and treatment of serious child protection concerns in young families. A number of aspects of the ยฎrst 156 families to attend the centre are explored, such as: parents' own care/abuse history, mental health diculties, substance abuse, death of previous children and premature births. A more detailed study with a subsample who have attended a therapeutic assessment is reported, utilizing standardized checklists. Parents rated their children as very disturbed with little change pre and post attendance. However, they did rate themselves as signiยฎcantly improved in negative symptomatology post attendance. Where children were school age, their teachers rated them as far less disturbed than the parents had rated them. Interestingly, they rated the children's behaviour as improving post attendance. Reasons for these dierences are discussed. *