The Family Body & The Professional Body
In very general terms we can put the people around children who have significant challenges to development and learning into two groups: the professional body and the family body
In the family body are families who have or had children of any age with these challenges. Parents, people in a parental role, grandparents and siblings are included. Also included are carers, close relatives, significant friends and neighbours. Then there might be volunteer workers in local community projects who are unpaid but concerned for the wellbeing of local children and families.
In the professional body are people who are employed in some capacity to support children who have these challenges. They come from the worlds of health, education and social care, from the academic world and from the voluntary sector. A minority of people can be in both groups (as am I as a sibling and teacher).
Generally speaking, people in the professional body are paid for offering some sort of support to children or to children and families. People in the family body are at the receiving end of this care but are not paid for being there. The people in the two camps can have very different powers, influence, experiences and life opportunities.
Team Around the Child (TAC) is a model for family and professionals to collaborate around an individual child. Taking this further, local support systems will be most effective when people in the two bodies work closely together. This applies also to seminars, conferences and reviews.
Peter Limbrick, Interconnections, March 2024
