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When a number of professionals are involved in treating the same family it becomes necessary to think about how to work together. In this paper I would like to focus on ways of working together used at the Cassel Hospital, in the in-patient Families Unit. Although the structures we use may not be applicable or appropriate to other settings, the thinking and the underlying principles hopefully will be.
An in-depth picture of the work of the Families Unit can be found in The Family as In-patient (R. Kennedy, A. Heymans, L. Tischler, eds, 1987). For purposes of this paper, I will begin by giving a brief outline of the treatment, the setting and the staff involved in the work. Some further details will follow later in the paper.
The Families Unit is one for up to 8 families, with 26 beds available. Although any family member may be the referred “patient”, die main concern most often centres on the parent/s. Families are referred when family functioning has broken down. Examples are: cases of puerperal breakdown; Severely neurotic or borderline disturbance in the parent/s which makes looking after the children impossible; children in care, often because of physical or sexual abuse, where the main aim is to reunite them with their parents. The hospital functions as a therapeutic community, with emphasis for families on looking after their children (there are also 2 units for single adults). Professionals involved with each family include: therapist/s for the parents, who are usually seen individually; child therapist/s treating the children; a nurse for the family whose aim is to facilitate the family's capacity to carry out the everyday tasks of functioning. There is also a Day Unit for the children, staffed by a teacher and nurses. These are main workers, but the family will also come into contact with other staff (nurses, social worker, consultants, etc.). The setting is a large, rambling, but somehow “homely” building.
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