Practitioners own discomfort and/or lack of confidence

“I would know how to refer and I could suggest things but I’m definitely not confident.”

“I think it’s a bit of discomfort.”“I don’t feel skilled to go down that route and ask those kinds

of questions really.”

“You’d want to feel confident that you were doing the right

things and saying the right things and dealing with it in

the right way.”

Worries about parent response

“I wouldn’t want the shutters to come up and for them to be ‘I’m not having anything to do

with that.’”

“Separated families…it’s a minefield…like you’ve got to be

really careful. I find it really hard.”

“I feel like they would be standoffish and back off.”

“Being able to get that information from a parent

without them being offended… I do feel at the

minute if I was to start asking questions…it’s more about

MY confidence, not because I think I’d be rude or ask them

in the wrong way.”

“It’s almost like ‘Ooooh you don’t go there…’. It’s almost

like there’s an invisible barrier between.”

“I was thinking ‘I don’t want to say this in case it’s

wrong’, ‘I don’t want to make it worse’.”

Is it my role?

“If we do think there’s a family in conflict we would

refer it on.”

“It’s more about the child than the parents. That’s

where I see myself at the moment.”

“I’ve had families where it worked to get both sides

and say what can we agree on and what can we work on, but again, we’re

not counsellors.”

Anne Gibson, Hartlepool Carers

Jan Hollis, Hartlepool Carers

Susan Harrison, Hartlepool Carers

Lisa Hornby, Head of Y9 and Parental Engagement

Lead, St Hild’s School

Katie Hering, Early Help Family Support Worker,

Hartlepool Borough Council

Lisa Hornby, Head of Y9

and Parental Engagement

Lead, St Hild’s School

Nikki Clark, Head of

Early Help,

Hartlepool Borough

Council

Brenda Harrison,

Chair of the Children’s

Strategic Partnership