1000 words argument essay

Children and Youth Services Review 31 (2009) 1086–1091

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Children and Youth Services Review

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth

Enhancing outcomes for children and young people: The potential of multi-layered interventions

Jackie Sanders a,⁎, Robyn Munford a, Bruce Maden b

a Social Work and Social Policy Programme, Massey University, New Zealand b Te Aroha Noa Community Services, Palmerston North, New Zealand

⁎ Corresponding author. School of Health and Socia Private Bag 11 222, Palmerston North, New Zealand. Tel

E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Sanders).

0190-7409/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. Al doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2009.07.003

a b s t r a c t

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history: Received 1 May 2009 Accepted 2 July 2009 Available online 9 July 2009

Keywords: Multi-layered interventions Neighborhood centers Complexity Paradox Possibility thinking Change Community centers

This paper will examine the way in which multi-layered interventions contribute to enhanced outcomes for families and neighborhoods. Adopting an inclusive definition of outcomes, it will build on the work recently articulated by Manalo [Manalo, V. (2008). Understanding practice principles and service delivery: The implementation of a community-based family support program. Children and Youth Services Review, 30, 928–941.] and Morison Dore, Feldman, and Winnick Gelles [Morison Dore, M., Feldman, N., & Winnick Gelles, A. (2006). Family of friends: Creating a supportive day care community to prevent child abuse and neglect. In A. Lightburn & P. Sessions (Eds.), Handbook of community-based clinical practice (pp. 245–260). New York: Oxford University Press.] on the value of combining a range of parent support and development initiatives, early childhood care and education and community-based initiatives. In particular it will consider the potential of programs that blend early childhood education (those provided by qualified teachers and parent educators), parent development (broadly conceived) and community development practice (including community regeneration and adult education) for enhancing outcomes for stressed and vulnerable children and young people. It will consider the case of a neighborhood-based community centre which has adopted this broad-based approach to support focusing on indicators of success in delivery and outcomes.

© 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Manalo (2008) has highlighted the potential of family support programs to have a positive impact on outcomes. Among other things, he identifies two key factors that play a role:

1. the capacity of these services to work in empowering ways with families — drawing upon, valuing and utilizing their expertise while at the same time supporting them to address key challenges,

2. delivering support in non-categorical ways — responding to the individualized needs of families rather than providing pre- determined packages of care.

The current study builds upon this conceptualisation of family support programs and that of others such as Morison Dore, Feldman, & Winnick Gelles (2006), Cole (1995) and Pecora, Whittaker, & Maluccio (1992) who argue for integrated approaches to practice. The research reported here is part of a larger international effort supported by the Fondazione Emmanuale Zancan and the International Association for Outcome-based Research in Family and Child Services (see Berry, 2007) to understand integrated, community-based approaches to practice and to document some of the benefits that are possible for

l Services, Massey University, .: +64 6 3569099x7596.

l rights reserved.

families and communities from these initiatives. This paper brings together the perspectives of families who use the broad range of services delivered by community centers with those of practitioners and other community stakeholders. In doing this, we focus in particular upon the initiatives that seek to improve outcomes for children and young people and draw out some key principles from research conducted in community settings. Building on work previously reported (Munford, Sanders, Maden, & Maden, 2007b; Munford, Sanders, & Maden, 2006) we are mindful of outcomes that may represent very small, gradual (proximal outcomes) steps towards change, as well as the potential for larger changes that may not appear for some time and which may be difficult to link to specific inputs from centers (distal outcomes).

1.1. Complexity and paradox

During the course of this study, which has now spanned four years, the sense has developed that neighborhood centers as single sites for the provision of a diverse array of supports and resources may be understood through the lens of complexity theory (Hudson, 2000; Medd, 2002; Morrison, 2005). Complexity theory offers new insights into the ways in which social interventions may contribute to good outcomes for families and children because it explicitly focuses on change, uncertainty, unpredictability, contradiction and tension. The emphasis of complexity theory on dynamic, adaptive systems that

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never quite repeat patterns, and that are more than the sum of their parts, speaks to parts of family and community change processes that have historically been difficult to understand. These ideas hold potential for helping us explain the paradoxical role that support so often seems to play in families' lives and allow us to consider the wider effects that interventions can have beyond the immediate lives of those involved. They provide fresh insights into understanding the trajectories of family life and assist us to make sense of the non-linear and synergistic processes of change (Warren-Adamson, 2008).

Morrison (2005) has provided a useful overview of concepts from complexity theory that hold explanatory potential for social work. In particular, the non-proportional relationship between cause and effect, sensitivity to initial conditions and the central importance of understanding the relationships between the parts of complex systems help orient us to the potential roles that social interventions can play in good outcomes. For instance, the non-proportional relation between cause and effect has been observed in much social work writing where the tendency for small inputs to create larger later effects has been noted (Munford, Sanders, Maden, & Maden, 2007b). We have observed these key concepts from complexity theory over the course of this research. Building on lessons learned from this research program, practitioners at Te Aroha Noa have begun to intentionally use concepts from complexity theory to guide their decision making in both clinical encounters and also in strategic decision making concerning the development of the agency over time.

2. The organisation and its local context

Te Aroha Noa has worked in the Highbury community for nearly twenty years and has an enduring presence. The locality is often described as an area of high social and economic deprivation. Census data indicates that the families around the center are in the top 10% of the most economically and socially deprived families in New Zealand.

The community has experienced the effects of more than two decades of economic restructuring and had to address issues of material impoverishment (Munford & Sanders, 2001). Issues of culture have been prominent as the local indigenous population have worked to find ways to encourage young people to find positive role models that counterbalance the attraction of harmful activities, such as gang life and substance use. Many parents identify risks to their children associated with these sorts of issues, and face very real challenges in trying to keep them safe.

During the 1990s Te Aroha Noa provided counselling for families and ran regular playgroups for parents and their children. The early playgroups provided a safe, welcoming venue for parents to extend their understanding of, and learn new strategies for responding to, their children's social and developmental needs, while gaining support from other parents, and playgroup facilitators (Munford et al., 2007a). Through contact with Te Aroha Noa's playgroup, many parents gained the confidence to seek out further opportunities for their own development and to address personal issues that restricted their capacity to be the parents they wished to be.

Towards the end of the 1990s the playgroup began to develop a life of its own. Parents and facilitators sought out opportunities to work together to extend the range and nature of activities provided, and the parents increasingly began to shape the way in which the playgroup operated. Recognising the potential of this organic development, playgroup facilitators encouraged parents to explore a wide range of issues and to seek out new opportunities that could be brought into the playgroup. A highly collaborative model emerged where parents and facilitators shaped the program together. From this collaborative work grew a vision for an early learning center which was opened in 2004. Echoing the collaborative model developed in the playgroup, parents now participate in the management and delivery of the early childhood curriculum on an equal footing with qualified early childhood teachers. The center develops its program through a

collaborative process whereby adults (parents, qualified early child- hood teachers, parent educators and others) work together on its implementation and on the development of self-review processes that allow for innovation, adaptation and change.

The organisation also offers a range of therapeutic and family development programs, including a transition to school program called HIPPY. It has recently begun offering a literacy program, and it is developing an out-reach community development program. These services are available for the whole community, but are often accessed by families who have first come to the early childhood service. Te Aroha Noa provides comprehensive support to family groups that have children aged under 13 years. These family groups may be small units of parent(s) and one or more children, but equally their work can draw in larger networks of extended kin and other social network members.

The program outcomes sought by Te Aroha Noa seek to contribute to increased family capacity to care, to creative problem-solving and solution-finding skills and to enhanced community capacity by strengthening naturally occurring networks and support systems. It focuses upon nurturing the development of local community leaders as part of a process of increasing the strength of social networks so that local people become more able to help and support each other. The processes used at the center have been favourably reviewed by the Education Review Office (the government assessor of early childhood programs), and the effectiveness of services have been positively endorsed in external evaluations of various programs it provides.

3. Methodology

The research reported on here is a small part of a larger, ongoing research program. In 2004 Te Aroha Noa and the social work program at Massey University began long-term practice research collaboration. The goal is to foster innovative practice development over time and to transfer practice learning into the teaching of social work. The research collaboration sits at the heart of this. The overall design is based in collaborative or co-operative inquiry (Munford & Sanders, 2003; Munford, & Sanders with Andrew, Butler, & Kaipuke, 2003; Reason & Bradbury, 2001). This is a participative, user-empowering approach to research which allows for a transformative relationship between researchers, practitioners and users. Our research was also influenced by the thinking embodied in appreciative inquiry and empowerment evaluation methods because of their commitment to finding ways to include practitioners and service users in all aspects of evaluation and research processes (Cooperrider & Whitney, 2004; Fetterman & Wandersman, 2005). This approach supports the embedding of findings in local practice, increasing its utility and enhancing the ability of practitioners to transfer findings into their daily practice. Collaborative inquiry fits well with complexity theory because it is sensitive to the local setting and is able to adapt and change as local conditions alter and as new factors emerge and have an impact on practice.

Rather than being a discrete set of research projects, the collaboration allows for a long-term research agenda to be built that systematically gathers a range of data on organisational, practice, family and community variables and which can link these to both small and large changes over time. At different points in time funders and other stakeholders become involved in parts of this research agenda. The research reported here was partly funded by the Families Commission (Handley et al., 2008). The research also received a small grant: from Inspiring Communities and was partly resourced by Te Aroha Noa and Massey University social work researchers themselves. The research involved a series of seventeen focus groups conducted with Te Aroha Noa practitioners over eighteen months and a series of fifteen in-depth interviews with families, community stakeholders

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and public officials that sought out confirming or disconfirming evidence for the data gathered in the practitioner focus groups.

Narrative practice is a fundamental principle in Te Aroha Noa work with families. Gergen (1997) reminds us about the centrality of story, metaphor, narrative, relational ways of knowing in structuring our understanding of our world. The telling of stories underpins social life; recounting draws people into each other's worlds and as an intervention method carries clues for practitioners seeking to find teachable moments that hold change potential. In organisations, stories of both success and failure are often lost in the busy-ness of day to day work. Yet these stories carry organisational history and critical organisational learning. Practitioners may record in their case notes an end point, or a time when they may have not been clear about how to proceed, they may identify a critical event, but typically do not have the time to stand back and look at the story in its totality as a story of growth from which concepts or more general principles might be able to be abstracted. Recognising the importance of fitting research methods to the local context – something that both appreciative inquiry and complexity theory emphasise – narrative was a central methodology used in this research. The research collaboration placed a particular emphasis upon gathering and critically analysing layers of stories.

3.1. Limitations of the study

This is a qualitative study which seeks to come to a rich and nuanced understanding of a single case by the detailed examination of a range of narratives surrounding a particular set of events in the life of a community and a community center. The purpose building this detailed, layered set of stories is to allow the identification of a range of key principles that contribute to the achievement of enhanced outcomes for children and parents living within a stretched commu- nity. The findings themselves are not generalisable. However, the principles we extract out at the end of the paper are able to be translated into other community settings and their applicability and relevance tested. It is this iterative process of theory development across contexts to which this project seeks to contribute.

4. Key findings — mapping change processes

The remainder of this paper is structured around a change story generated through this research that illustrates some of the key dimensions of Te Aroha Noa practice. It demonstrates how the combination of neighborhood development, early childhood education and individualised practice work together to create enhanced outcomes for children and families. In previous research examining practice at Te Aroha Noa the idea of small steps leading to giant leaps was explored by considering the case example of one family that worked with several practitioners over growth and change (Munford et al., 2006); here we consider examples of both individual and community practice working together. The recounting of the stories of practice tells us about the ripple effects that good processes and relationships stimulate; we begin to see the butterfly effect (Hudson, 2000, p. 221) described in complexity theory. These stories are synergistic and illustrate the ways in which community practice can be used to release creative energy. The story centers on the local council's decision to refurbish a children's playground and we beginwith staff talking in our focus groups about the ways in which their practice thinking was expanding to consider how they could play a role as community change-agents by seizing opportunities in the wider community to draw people together to work on change projects:

We had only just begun to think in terms of the way we connected to the community around us when we received a community consultation document from the City Council about the redeve- lopment of the Playground. We thought “this initiative is small, it

is visible, it is local it is a positive project that should result in benefits to local people.” We talked to some parents at our early learning center and decided that the best way was to call a meeting; two of our staff door-knocked and asked people to come to a meeting to discuss the Playground. [At the meeting parents] were surprised at how much expertise they had… From this small beginning where we responded to the opportunity presented by the Council to be involved in the reconstruction of the playground a larger set of ideas has grown…approximately 30 groups…have worked together to create a ‘Celebrate Highbury Day’ based on the opening of the Playground. We are getting to know each other, breaking down barriers and building trust as we plan this event together. We all have a passion to see Highbury recognised as a jewel in the crown, not a place where only bad things happen but as a place with a rich cultural heritage that nurtures the emergence of truly local leaders… during the celebration local parents and children were up front, visibly leading the celebra- tion… (Handley et al., 2008, p. 10–11).

As staff responded to this initially small and very local initiative they were aware of the potential it might hold. They had talked in focus groups about possibility thinking — a practice orientation that required openness, flexibility, willingness to hold ‘professionalism lightly’ and to actively listen to and engage with the solutions being offered by the community. They were not concerned that door- knocking and hosting a meeting to talk about a children's playground was not what they had signed up to in becoming early childhood educators and counsellors. Rather they understood the ultimate measure of their success in their various professional roles would be best judged by the extent to which they could unleash synergies that extended beyond individual encounters. The possibilities contained in bringing together local parents to talk about a resource like a playground seemed enormous and as time went by they were astonished by the synergies this small initial meeting generated.

The refurbishment of the playground created large and small effects at a number of levels. Some of these outcomes were immediate. Others were slow to emerge and have gradually gathered momentum over time. In the initial period, local parents became involved in the refurbishment of the playground; they met with Council designers over the layout and equipment and they participated in planning and the formal opening of the playground. In this city, refurbished playgrounds have not historically been greeted with such a sense of occasion! In itself, the formal opening was a positive local event that possibly had little significance beyond providing an opportunity for a community celebration. However, understanding the importance of seizing on positive momentum, Te Aroha Noa staff, local parents and community officials decided to convert this single celebration into an ongoing event that would bring local people together on an annual basis. So the small, single point in time event became larger and provided new opportunities for residents, staff and local officials to work together on a regular basis. One of the unanticipated effects of this is that now there is a local forum for people to come together not only to plan community celebrations, but there are also ongoing relationships that span the community, local NGOs and government that provide opportunities to explore other issues, to jointly problem solve and to plan in a more long-term way. There have been attempts to do this in the past. These have usually grown in response to a negative event such as a murder or local gang warfare. Growing out of a positive event; this new energy has more potential and it is inclusive and focused on growth and development rather than reaction and blame.

If we look underneath these community-level effects to consider how the playground development was experienced by local people we can learn more about the paradoxical nature of change. Alongside the involvement of Te Aroha Noa staff in the playground initiative we

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gathered data from parents and other stakeholders in the community. Complexity theory alerts us to the way that change is not always neat and straightforward. It underscores the way that a single stimulus can set off chain reactions in many directions, and that change can be experienced as positive in one place and as negative in another; there are many effects that emanate out from an initial stimulus. This requires us to temper our enthusiasm for initiating changes by reminding us to be attentive to places where positive outcomes may not occur and for attending to these alongside our celebration of positive effects. To illustrate this we consider another set of outcomes from the playground initiative by sharing the experience of Tania, one of the local mothers:

I am a mother and I have lived in Highbury alongside the playground for four years… Before the changes we used the park everyday…. My children attend the early childhood center run by Te Aroha Noa. I am interested in making sure that my children are safe when they are playing away from me and so the redevelopment of the park was importantto me. I attended themeetingafter staff from Te Aroha Noa invited me and I was pleased to be able to be involved in the discussions about fixing the park up. I liked being asked for my views and the meeting was exciting to be part of… My children went and helped with the planting in the park and got their hands dirty, they loved it and I was proud…. [However] in the end the playground equipment was too big for my kids and it would not be safe for them to play on…So in the end it hasn't been something that has worked out for me and my kids. The consultation was important to me; it gave me the chance to be part of the decision making process and people listened to me when I was concerned for the safety and needs of the children in the area (Handley et al., 2008, p. 14).

After the refurbishment of the playground Tania's family could still use the grassed area to play touch rugby but they could no longer use the play equipment; so they lost a resource. While the refurbishment overall was judged a success, there were costs to be borne by some people. We explored this sense of loss with Tania and she explained to us that while missing the equipment for small children to play on, she had balanced out the benefits she gained from being involved in the process and the other ripple effects she saw coming out of the initiative. She had really enjoyed watching her children participate in the tree planting, the opening ceremony had been very important to her as a positive local event and since that time several important things had happened that she attributed to the initiative:

Housing NZ (the state agency that owned most of the housing in the immediate vicinity) got involved. They came to inspect my house and, Tom, the Inspector, asked if my children played at the park. When I told him that my children loved it at the park he asked me if I thought that a big gazebo would be a good idea for shade. Because Bruce (from Te Aroha Noa) had been involved in the playground I suggested that hecontact Bruce to get somesupportfor this. Tom had some funding but needed further support and input. I think there are still lots more things we can do to make the park a good place for the locals. A mural would be a way of reducing tagging by getting the children painting (Handley et al., 2008, p. 14).

Participation in the playground refurbishment became part of a growing confidence and self-awareness for Tania. Te Aroha Noa is continually searching for ways of drawing its local community into its services and to developing innovative solutions to the challenges that local families face. As the playground initiative was drawing to a close, local people had begun talking about family violence and its impact on local children. Te Aroha Noa practitioners were seeking new ways of responding to family violence that moved beyond individual ther- apeutic support. Using a similar approach to that adopted in the playground initiative, they began to ask local parents for advice about

strategies that had the potential to have ripple effects beyond individual clinical encounters. Tania began to play an important role in supporting parents affected by family violence to attend meetings at Te Aroha Noa to talk about ways that community development strategies could help to reduce violence.

Thinking from within a complexity framework we know that the flow-on effects from change in one part of a system will have unpredictable consequences in unpredictable places — we might have assumed that all parents living around the playground would have seen the new play equipment as meeting their children's needs, but complexity theory should attune us to the possibility that this might not always be the case. Furthermore, change can be paradoxical and we will not always be able to predict the value or benefit particular people gain from specific changes. In Tania's case, while she didn't experience a direct benefit from her involvement in the playground initiative, she continues to derive benefits from the involvement this sparked, She has also contributed to benefits for others as she has supported mothers from the local area to participate in the violence prevention initiative that grew at Te Aroha Noa from the playground initiative. Had our assessment of the playground initiative focused only on the direct outcomes, we would have missed these significant effects that have potential to generate long-term positive change here.

The playground initiative had other ripple effects too. We observed one of these in particular flow around the local community in the weeks following the Celebrate Highbury event. One of Te Aroha Noa staff explains how this ripple worked out:

Following Celebrate Highbury a clash of people occurred in the park. The local newspaper reported that the residents were reluctant to talk to the Police. The Police have been working hard for a long time to build trust amongst the residents of Highbury; the Celebrate Highbury day had provided a low key opportunity for the Police to mingle with residents. The positive presence of the Police at the celebration helped residents to see them as people rather than only in their policing role. Following the violent outburst in the park the door-to-door enquiries found children recognising the policemen and telling their parents. The residents were angry the violence occurred in the park and showed they were no longer willing to tolerate this behaviour. The residents were prepared to take a stand and cooperate with the Police by supplying information whereas in the past this would not have been the case (Handley et al., 2008, p. 15).

Celebrate Highbury created a paradox for the Police and the families of Highbury. The event provided a space in which new possibilities could emerge for the relationship between residents and law enforcement. It also created a space for the children of the area to help their parents define new ways of relating to the Police. In responding to the destruction in the park, parents, children and the Police created a common cause; they were all angry and disappointed that their new park could be damaged. The story also reminds us of the paradoxical nature of change itself; the Party was a very positive event on many levels, but it did not change everything; the park could still be damaged and violence within the community had not stopped. However, what had changed was the way in which the people living in the neighborhood responded to this negative event and in this we can glimpse proximal changes that contribute to later, larger distal outcomes. This aspect of the story alerts us to the rich and numerous possibilities that emerge from well-managed community initiatives; their potential effects are exponential because of their complexity, the numerous actors who become involved and because of the possibi- lities they create for seeing people in new ways and for learning that change in one aspect of a person's context can create possibilities in other areas. The playground initiative continues to generate ripples around the Highbury community.

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5. Discussion

A number of principles appear to play a key role in connecting neighborhood-based services to broader improved outcomes for children and their families.

5.1. Neighborhood-based

Te Aroha Noa was able to respond quickly to the Council's flyers because it was located in the middle of Highbury — it received the flyer as did the residents around the park. Being located close to the families of the area meant that it was able to talk to these families as another resident with similar interests in the quality of local resources and infrastructure. The neighborhood location also meant that local families knew Te Aroha Noa well. They passed it everyday as they went about their business and some had used the services, so coming to a meeting was something they could easily imagine doing; they knew where to go and they knew people who worked there. These informal, daily connections make it easier for people to participate and to feel safe making contributions.

Warren-Adamson (2001, p. 6) has talked of neighborhood-based community centers as offering a sense of containment or holding, building upon Shuttleworth's (1991) elaboration of parenting as containment. The notion of containment provides a framework for us to understand the potential of neighborhood-based centers to productively work in what may appear to be chaotic and highly- charged settings offering a sense of refuge to vulnerable families. The sense of confidence that safety and refuge can be found within such centers means that they are ideally placed to embark upon ambitious community change processes along with the residents who live close by. This sense of safety is not only about security around the implications of personal troubles being shared with workers, rather it embodies a deeper sense of connection to the people who work at these centers; a sense of confidence that workers understand in a deep way what was happening, even if they do not always know the details. These centers add to the social glue of neighborhoods and are able to provide an integrative role across many helping systems and interventions. They support families in their interactions with other agencies. Practitioners working within these centers are able to adopt approaches that embrace the notion of family change as an iterative, evolving and dynamic process that incorporates understanding about how to draw upon community and family contexts to facilitate successful change processes (Warren-Adamson, 2008).

5.2. Possibility thinking, working from strengths

Possibility thinking is a term gaining currency in the academy and provides new perspectives for understanding the complexity of social change processes (Reeler, no date; Westley, Zimmerman, & Patton, 2006; Zander & Zander, 2000). At Te Aroha Noa possibility thinking fits within its strengths-based orientation to practice. It is embedded in an intentionally positive orientation to even the most challenging situa- tions. Possibility thinking is the belief that change is always possible. The central role for practitioners in challenging seemingly intractable situations is to actively and intentionally seek out the disconfirming evidence — the potential for change. It requires that practitioners work to see change and potential where everyoneelse sees only difficulty. This calls for careful listening and attention to small details that contain the potential to unblock stuck situations and to find solutions. One of the Te Aroha Noa practitioners described it in this way:

Strengths-based work is not purely just going in and looking for the strengths, it is hearing and honouring the people, that they are worthwhile as persons. We want to hear about your struggles, we want to hear all of that. And also to hear the other thread that is coming through. Deep listening, listening for more than what is

there is important. Through this you see the possibilities, deep listening creates the potential for possibility thinking…. That links to how to create the possibility for people to be transparent and open, that we are not frightened by chaos and complexity. It allows surprising things to occur. It is something people know that we do here; there are links out there [in the community] with what happens in here (Handley et al., 2008, pp. 34).

Connected with this is the commitment to always seek ‘more’ for families and for communities. Here practitioners support families and communities to have big dreams and to envision new futures for their children. The embracing of ‘more’ for many families means that they rediscover the meaning systems and the capacities that will contribute to building growth producing environments. As we saw in the example of the playground project, families were able to participate in a different kind of community experience and to discover another perspective on community life in Highbury. This example also demonstrates that success in addressing immediate issues can be used to seed other opportunities, to expand one's vision and to generate the confidence to seek out new possibilities for community and family life.

5.3. Paradox and complexity

Paradox and complexity was a recurring theme in practitioner narratives about their approach to their work. Like possibility thinking, complexity theory is increasingly gaining currency for its explanatory potential in a range of human service fields. Complexity theory focuses on explaining non-steady state, complex, adaptive systems that never achieve balance or equilibrium and never exactly repeat themselves. Working creatively with paradoxes and contra- dictions, rather than seeing these as troublesome and to be avoided, had been part of Te Aroha Noa practice for a number of years. They had learned that paradox, tension and contradiction provided spaces where they could work creatively on change with families. Learning about complexity theory through their participation in this research project provided them with conceptual frameworks to help explain why paradox and contradiction were so important in working towards positive outcomes. They explained that they had learned to see chaos as a friend; as an invitation for change, not an indicator of deficit:

Being comfortable with unpredictability is important, and orga- nisations such as Te Aroha Noa have to be able to accept the contingent, paradoxical and uncertain nature of change as a fundamental characteristic of the journey they share. The paradoxical nature of change is also apparent in the way in which perception and feelings are as important as knowledge and facts. Flexibility, adaptability and being able to take time are integral dimensions to this way of working (Handley et al., 2008, pp. 24– 25).

The practitioners at Te Aroha Noa understood change as an emergent, organic process that would be unpredictable and uncertain. Through this process they learned to connect with natural change processes and to attend to opportunities for growth and development that would bring enhanced outcomes for families. They learned to look in unexpected places for change, such as within community initiatives, which enabled families to think differently about their community and to discover new skills and resources that could be used to address other challenges confronting their family.

5.4. Creating sustaining long-term relationships — mutual respect and learning

Positive and inclusive relationship practices emerged as a critical principle in participants' stories. The practice of support, whether it is

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individual, therapeutic or community action-oriented, inevitably comes packaged in relationships and the way in which practitioners approach these relationships is a critical factor in the effectiveness of any intervention (Sanders & Munford, 2006). The stories emphasise the two-way, recursive nature of effective relationships; they are relationships that allow all involved to have agency, to exercise some control over the nature and course of this relationship and critically, they allow all parties to contribute their expertise and wisdom. Te Aroha Noa understands that everyone is simultaneously a teacher and a learner. The approach to the playground initiative focused upon opening up spaces where positive, sustaining and respectful relation- ships could be developed. So, for instance, Te Aroha Noa went to much effort to engage the local Council in the initial meeting, and worked with the Council to make sure that this meeting was safe for them and for the local residents. This then provided a positive frame from within which Council could be drawn into the celebration and opening of the park. In this way a carefully managed, emergent process was developed that was founded on the principle of mutual respect and which was able to grow and adapt as circumstances changed and as new players became involved. This approach to relationships increased the possibilities for people to find their own solutions to problems and increased the likelihood that more rather than fewer people would take responsibility for making positive changes happen. The mutual learning experienced by the community reflected the importance of a shared commitment to change processes. The practitioners connected with others outside the agency in order to develop skills, resources and knowledge and to build collaborative partnerships. These strategies are critical to the development of a self- determining community that is able to look after its own people on a sustained basis. Also of significance was the commitment to engage in critical reflection, to reflect on actions taken and learn from these in order to carefully balance risk with innovation and to extend the possibilities for community growth and development.

6. Implications for practice

The park stories alert us to the value of taking a broad approach to thinking about outcomes. They draw our attention to the potential of community-based initiatives and events to contribute to positive outcomes because they draw parents and children into services in positive and non-threatening ways. Warren-Adamson has noted that early childhood services hold potential to draw vulnerable families gently into supportive services (Warren-Adamson, 2001, 2007, 2008) and Te Aroha Noa has observed this in its practice. In a similar way, it appeared that the playground refurbishment and the opening celebration provided a safe, non-threatening way for many families such as Tania's to begin to be open to changes.

The stories also suggest that when looking for change we should look more widely than just to those immediately involved in initiatives or services. From her involvement in the park planning, Tania gained the confidence to increase her involvement in the Te Aroha Noa family violence initiative and in time became one of the ambassadors for this community initiative. She began to draw other mothers from around her house to the Center to explore ways of creating movement on family violence reduction through community action. The ripple effects from the playground celebration reverberated around Highbury so that when the park was damaged the weekend after the opening, the children in the area were able to create the possibility for their parents to see the Police in new, positive ways — as people who had shared interests in making the community safe.

These different types of outcomes grew out of one small initiative and they draw our attention to the capacity of neighborhood services to stimulate community-level outcomes. Their capacity to seamlessly weave their own therapeutic and supportive services together with wider community-based initiatives in an organic way holds potential for population-based initiatives and for addressing major public issues

such as family violence. Their location within the communities they serve means they are well placed to quickly respond to local events and issues using their networks to stimulate activity on a wide front. In doing this they harness the synergies that occur when people come together to work on shared projects.

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