Service shoutout: Family Based Solutions
For this month’s service shoutout, we’re highlighting Family Based Solutions, an Enfield-based charity specialising in Child to Parent Abuse (CPA) and supporting families where relationships at home have become difficult or overwhelmed.
Family Based Solutions has been working with families affected by CPA since 2012. At the heart of their approach is a focus on the whole family.
Rather than seeing the parent as the victim and the child as simply the person causing harm, Family Based Solutions recognises that family relationships are complex. They work with parents, children and young people individually and together as a family, helping them understand what is happening, recognise their strengths and begin rebuilding relationships.
They understand that CPA can be incredibly difficult for families to talk about. Parents can experience fear, shame, isolation and blame, while children and young people can quickly become defined by their behaviour rather than understood within the wider context of what is happening for them and their family.
Their approach is rooted in Solution Focused practice. While they take the difficulties families are experiencing seriously, they don’t begin by asking what is wrong with them. Instead, they work alongside families to notice what is already working, identify strengths and build towards the relationships and family life they want.
Family Based Solutions also recognise that CPA rarely exists in isolation. In the majority of families they support, CPA is interlinked with other experiences and difficulties within the family. Their wider services therefore include domestic abuse recovery work and support for adults who use harm, helping them understand the family as a whole rather than addressing one behaviour or one person in isolation.
Alongside this, they run parent support groups, deliver their B.O.S.S. programme within local secondary schools, and provide training, coaching and reflective practice for professionals working with children and families.
A special milestone this year
This year has been particularly special for Family Based Solutions with the publication of their book, Understanding Child to Parent Abuse: Recovery through Solution Focused Brief Therapy, published by Routledge.
The book has grown from many years of working alongside families affected by CPA and the professionals supporting them. It explores the complexity of Child to Parent Abuse while offering a practical, non-blaming and hopeful approach to working with the whole family.
At the heart of both the book and their work is a simple belief: families are more than the difficulties they are experiencing, and even when things feel incredibly stuck, change is possible.
We’re proud to shine a light on the work of Family Based Solutions and the contribution they continue to make to understanding and responding to Child to Parent Abuse.
We hope their work and their new book will continue to be a valuable resource for families and practitioners alike.
