Preventing breakdown

Preventing breakdown

a manual for those working with families

and the individuals within them

By Mark Hamer

Pub. 2005 by Russell House Publishing

Format: A4 wiro. 141 pages. ISBN 1-903855-61-6.

Childcare practice has become more and more focussed on protection whilst legislation, guidance and good practice all dictate that we should be providing early interventions, supporting families and preventing family breakdown.

Before taking that most damaging step of taking children away from their homes and families and leaving them in strange and unfamiliar environments, childcare social workers, managers, and ultimately policy makers must be able to say that the alternatives have been tried, that family and community strengths have been explored, developed and exploited and that there really is no other option.

This manual explains how front line workers, managers or policy makers can create an environment where families can exploit their potential to develop and protect their children. It provides tools and ideas that will guide workers into exploring and developing family strengths and self-efficacy, developing family pride, creating a focus on solutions and a determination to succeed.

Tools included in this book are available as free downloads from this website

All royalties from Preventing Breakdown go to the Option 2 Project in Cardiff.

Reviews for Preventing Breakdown:

Feb 2008
Dear Mark Hamer,

Have just acquired your truly excellent workbook "Preventing breakdown". A
timely find as I am just involved in helping to co-ordinate a pilot roll
out of a "Signs of Safety" approach to child protection work (Turnell and
Edwards) in one of our area teams in the hope that if successful we will
adopt it city wide. It's been a long hard slog but at least seems to be
bearing fruit and your workbook will also be of immense help. My own
training is as a social worker and family therapist which I have been doing
for almost twenty five years, with a particular Solution Focused "slant"
for about the last ten years. Our pilot is also being supported by the
BRIEF practice in London.

I was so impressed by the workbook that I bought "The barefoot helper"
too!!

Just wanted to make a connection as it might be good to liaise in some way
over the next years or so.

With thanks and best wishes,

Tony Flynn
Practice Manager
Clermont Child Protection Unit

"... a book every social worker should have. It contains guidance on methods of intervention that promote positive change in families in crisis, problem-solving and non-confrontational interviewing as well as useful, photocopiable tools."
Children Now,
15 Aug – 4 Sept 2007.

“Offering no nonsense evidence-based practice advice. Including a number of practical handouts… Rather than a jargon loaded reference book, this ‘How to’ manual offers simple, effective and tested solutions to crisis situations within families and measurable outcomes for practitioners and families. A comprehensive ‘hands-on’ resource, it is an invaluable book for practitioners and students.”
Community Care Magazine
21-27 April 2005

“Should be of interest to any practitioner who works with families in difficulty … the tone is intensely practical …”
Care and Health Magazine
April 5 – 11 2005

“Full of new ideas, this book is a useful guide to developing the family’s strengths, developing pride and focussing on solutions … an essential book to have at hand.”
Childright Magazine
April 2005

“ … the work described is inspirational … useful ideas about how to work with families … the author is passionate about this method … a bold title for an inspirational manual … I would ask managers to get a copy for the team to share.”
Community Practitioner
Vol 78, Number 6, June 2005

“I feel that this book will be useful to me as a public law practitioner, as a tool in assessing the work that is being undertaken by Local Authorities and residential assessment units. I feel that some of the principles that guide [this] work are crucial to the positive reframing of the work conducted with families whose children are in the care system.’
CAFCASS Practice and Research Digest
Jan to April 2005

“I will use it in many aspects of my work: in my court work when trying to assist local authorities to work with families so that children can be returned to their parents, and I shall refer to it in my writing … I really wish that I had written this: it is a book that very many people will find immensely helpful.

This is a brilliant book. Every so often I read a book which I really wish I had written: this is one of those. Helping families in distress and adversity to keep together is a huge and vital task: this book explains how to do it. Using the realities of partnership, communication, empowerment, motivation, goal setting, and enabling new skills to be developed, Mark Hamer has provided detailed help to all of us who work in this field. He is to be hugely congratulated.”
Professor Richard Velleman
University of Bath and Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health NHS Trust

“This … reads well … it is written from the heart and the passion comes over strongly and is infectious … Packed with ideas and exercises, it will inspire practitioners and families. It will be plundered by all staff who wish to find new and creative ways of engaging with families. This book should inspire reflection from policy makers that a primary emphasis on outcomes will also produce good systems and workers with a sense of job satisfaction … I could not fault it … I could not put it down when I started reading it and that tells you something when I had just spent 7 hours with my children going round a local theme park … a gem.”
Martin C. Calder
Team Manager, Child protection Unit, City of Salford Community and Social Services Directorate

“The book explains how a front line worker, manager or policy maker can create an environment where families can exploit their potential to develop and protect their children. It offers tools and ideas that will guide workers into building on the family’s strengths and self efficacy, developing family pride, a focus on solutions and a determination to succeed.”
Social Care Institute for excellence (SCIE)
Social Care Online

'...fantastic, couldn't be without it ...'
Bev Riches, Cambridgeshire County Council

'I would like to strongly recommend a manual that I have found to be invaluable in the course of my work. I have adopted many of its strategies ... I genuinely feel that the book should be seriously studied as part of any development of services ...'
Carol Green, Support Manager, The First Base Agency, Dumfries.

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