Ideally:

In keeping with one of the SUD-Rx principles, Balancing INSIDE and OUTSIDE change work, ideally there will be:

(a)Attendance of member(s) of the family/care network for up to two sessions.

• Attendance with family/carers in one of the initial two sessions, and again for the last session (as part of a systemic Relapse prevention intervention) would be the ideal arrangement, but...
• ...In working with families the KeyWorker must accept a degree of flexibility. See Families and Engagement.

(b)Individual work for four of the total six sessions.

Practicalities:

Often young people do not want the involvement of family members.

In keeping with the SUD-Rx principles of Engagement, and the need to Roll with Resistance the KeyWorker does not push this argument, but instead adapts to use a "virtual" family, holding the hope that at some point real family members/carers may become available:

"I understand completely that you want to keep this work separate from your family, and that is fine. So just to help me think about your situation a bit more accurately, if we just imagined that somehow that your ~Mother/Father/Aunt was suddenly here anyhow..."

"Can you help me understand what that would be like for you?

"For him or her?" (This is one of many Mentalizing manoeuvres)

Concerns:

In the case of a young person vetoeing the involvement of the family, the KeyWorker will bear in mind Child Protection concerns that may potentially underly this (parental neglect, abuse, etc) and will use SupervisoryStructures if required to ensure appropriate action is taken in such circumnstances.