Adul. mental health FGC research

[Sean Haresnape]

nabling social support and resilience: outcomes of Family Group Conferencing in public mental health care

Gideon de Jong, Gert Schout, Ellen Meijer, Cornelis L. Mulder and Tineke Abma
a Department of Medical Humanities, EMGO+, VU University Medical Centre Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlandsb Department of Psychiatry, Epidemiological and Social Psychiatric Research Institute, Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

European Journal of Social Work

Published online: 07 Sep 2015

DOI: 10.1080/13691457.2015.1081585

Family Group Conferencing (FGC) is a decision-making model where clients with their social network formulate their own plan. There is little experience with FGC in mental health care. We studied the outcomes of 41 conferences in a public mental health setting in the north of the Netherlands. We interviewed 312 respondents out of a total of 473 conference participants. In 33 cases, it was possible to obtain scores from 245 respondents on scales ranging from 0 to 10 about the situation prior and after the conference on three outcome measures, namely the quality of: (1) social support, (2) resilience and (3) living conditions. In the 33 cases, t-tests and multilevel analyses indicate on all of the three outcomes measures significant positive changes after the conferences. On average, the scores on the quality of social support (5.04–6.73), resilience (4.09–6.32) and the living conditions (3.73–6.64) had been increased since the conferences were organised. The results are modest but remarkable. That the impact of FGC is not more substantial can be explained. The clients referred to a conference in this particular study, mostly had a limited network and few recourses from whom little support could be expected.