Meriden Family Programme

Meriden: The West Midlands Family Programme

The Model of Family Work

The model is a psychoeducational approach to family work known as Behavioural Family Therapy (BFT). This was developed by Professor Ian Falloon and colleagues. It is a practical, skills based therapy that usually takes 10 to 14 sessions to deliver. It provides information to the service user and their family about the service users mental health issues and treatment. The family also complete work on recognising early signs of relapse and develop a clear relapse plan. BFT promotes positive communication, problem solving skills and stress management within the family thus leading to stress reduction. Individual family members are encouraged to identify and work towards clear goals.

Which Problems is BFT Suitable For?

Research has demonstrated that BFT is effective in reducing stress for service users and their families and significantly reducing relapse rates and thus helping to promote recovery in those people suffering with severe and enduring mental health problems. The main focus of delivery has been around providing intervention to those families with a member with ‘psychosis’ or ‘manic depression’. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence guidelines, set out in 2003 recommend family interventions should be offered to 100% of individuals with schizophrenia who have experienced a recent relapse. Standard six ‘Caring for Carers’ of the National Service Framework, stipulates that all individuals who provide regular and substantive care for a person on CPA should have their own assessment and care plan. The overall aims of BFT are stress reduction and improved communication within the family and the approach can be utilised to help meet the needs of other families in contact with mental health services.

Overview of the Therapy Process

Meet with the family to discuss the benefits of the approach
Agreement with the family that they are willing to try the approach
Assessment of individual family members
Assessment of families communication and problem solving
Review of the assessment information of the families resources, problems and goals
Meeting with the family to discuss/plan how to proceed and establishment of family meetings
Education and sharing information about the mental health issue
Early warning signs and relapse prevention work
Teaching of communication skills
Problem solving
Booster sessions
Review and closure

This is a general overview of the process and there are times when the sequence will be different because of the needs of a particular family.

Families' Experiences of Behavioural Family Therapy

As part of the evaluation of the Meriden Programme, family members were interviewed about how they experienced Behavioural Family Therapy (Campbell, 2000). The following quotes illustrate the views they expressed:

‘I think us all being together helped. Because in a family somebody is always dashing off somewhere and at least over that period of time we were together discussing things’
‘I thought the goals were good – and the positive things. It gave you a chance to praise other people in the family which made us all feel a bit better.’
‘It makes you think about other peoples feelings’
‘It gave us a chance to say things that we would not normally say’
‘Its difficult to see where we would be today if we hadn’t had these meetings. I don’t know what would have happened’
‘I always found that it gave me a lift. Once they’d been (the therapists) it didn’t seem as bad …. And you sort of realise that they were understanding how you felt.
‘Very, very effective. On a scale of 0 to 10 I’d say 10 definitely’.

Comments taken from stories written by people who have received BFT

‘For the first time my role was clarified for my son’s well times and, more importantly, during times of relapse’.
‘We now recognise the early warning signs of relapse and act accordingly. This prevents my son going deeper into crisis’.
‘My son, myself and our family are proof that BFT can and does work. It not only gave my son his life back, it gave me my life back too. I am now able to do the things in life I want to do……..’.

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