Restorative Approaches Veterans and Families Service
The Restorative Approaches Veterans and Families Service is a partnership between Tros Gynnal Plant (TGP), Veterans NHS Wales (VNHSW) based at UHW Cardiff and CASCADE, Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre at Cardiff University.
TGP will work in partnership with Dr Neil Kitchiner of the VNHSW service to develop and provide a bespoke community based service specifically for Veterans from Cardiffand the Vale of Glamorgan referred to the VNHSW service, who are suffering from a ‘service related’ mental health problem, primarily PTSD. The VNHSW works solely with Veterans, TGP will complement this established service and will work with veterans and their families.
TGP will work with approximately 40 veterans referred by the VNHSW service plus their families – partners, children and wider family and friends as appropriate, where it has been assessed by the VNHSW service that a restorative whole family intervention would be beneficial. We will work with veterans where they are together with their family and also where there is a separation provided that all parties agree to the intervention.
TGP will utilise a model (Restorative Engagement) that we have developed over the last 6 years that brings together the best parts of a number of other models – Restorative Approaches, primarily used in the criminal justice system and Family Group Conferencing, primarily used in child welfare. We have successfully developed our Restorative Engagement model to be able to work with families where there are conflicts and relationship issues as neither of the other models enabled us to do this as effectively as we do now. Our model focusses on relationships – helping individuals and families make, maintain and when necessary repair their relationships – and helping families to communicate more effectively, as we know that relationships are crucial and essential to maintaining good mental health. Without the work that we do around communication and relationships we know from experience that change is less likely to happen or if it does, to be sustainable for families.
We will work with veterans and their families where they are experiencing conflict or difficulties within their families or communities or are experiencing difficulties in their engagement with other services and as a result it is impacting on their mental health.
TGP will engage with veterans and their families to help identify their strengths, skills, resources and needs. We will enable and empower veterans and their families to communicate, understand each other, build relationships, resolve conflicts and make plans by helping each family member to identify what it is that needs to change, how to go about making changes and who else can be involved to help.
A Restorative Practitioner will work with each veteran referred and their family members for approximately 6 months from initial referral, through goal setting, preparation, facilitated communication, planning and review and will gather data on distance travelled for each family.
A key part of the intervention, once all family members, including children and young people, are ready and properly prepared, is a facilitated Restorative Meeting attended by all family members and their VNHSW Therapist. The purpose of the meeting is for the family members to share with each other how they are feeling, how they are being affected, what they think needs to change and what they can do to help the situation. The role of the VNHSW Therapist is an educative one, to share with the family information about the nature of the condition that the veteran is experiencing and its effects on function. This will allow a better understanding and reassure the family that the veteran is suffering from an illness that can respond to treatment.
For some veterans, there might be a need prior to a family meeting for a number of smaller facilitated meetings where there are issues / conflicts that need to be resolved first. TGP will be responsive to the individual needs of each veteran and their family and respond appropriately.
TGP will utilise an action research approach and amend and adapt the model in relation to learning from veterans, their families and professionals along the way.
TGP will also work in partnership with CASCADE to undertake an evaluation of the service and the impact it has on the mental health and well-being of veterans and their families.
During the project we will test the hypothesis that if we help to improve communication, relationships and family functioning with veterans and their families then there will also be a positive impact on the mental health and well-being of veterans and their families residing in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan.
At the end of the project TGP will have a model specifically tailored for veterans and families that includes a referral pathway, promotional literature, project resources and evaluation strategy and will produce a final report clearly demonstrating the findings from the project and recommendations for scalability and replicability.