Apoyando familias con necesidades complejas: aproximaciones y modelos en prácticas y políticas

Resumen

The family is increasingly recognised as an important component of support and intervention for policies and services seeking to meet the needs of service users with multiple or complex needs. However there appears to be a paucity of academic analysis of policy and practice concerned specifically with ‘family’, with insufficient coherence to the knowledge base regarding effective practice. This paper seeks to contribute towards the development of such a framework through a review of models and approaches to family-based policy and service provision. Three distinct categories are suggested. In the first category, approaches seek to strengthen the ability of family members to offer support to a primary service user within that family. In the second category, family members are recognised as having their own specific and independent needs arising out of their relationship with the primary service user. The third category includes ‘whole family approaches’, focused on shared needs and strengths that could not be dealt with through a focus on family members as individuals. Each category is subdivided, with some approaches recognizing families as a resource in combating or countering the worst excesses of risk, and others presenting the family as the cause of risk for specific members.