What is the Social Ecology

The Social Ecology is really the sum of all the social relationships that the young person lives and develops within.

The Social Ecology is one of the Domains in which the KeyWorker is expected to plan effective work, and is really a series of NETWORKS, so this is closely related to one of the Core Features of AMBIT, namely Working with your NETWORKS.

Here we are focused mainly on those explicitly informal/family networks as well as what might be seen as "community resources" (sports clubs, churches, youth groups, arts centres, etc). There may also be negative influences in a young person's social ecology; gangs, criminality, drugs, sub-cultures promoting self injury, etc, etc.

Of course there are also more explicitly formal/professional networks - social services, education, health, police, probation/youth offending, etc: these are in one sense part of the Social Ecology, but see Working with other professionals for more detail on these.

What to do?

• Given that the Social Ecology around a young person is a network, or series of networks, it follows that Dis-integration is a feature.
• The work of Addressing Dis-integration (one of the Core Features of AMBIT) will be required in this Domain.

• See Social-Ecological Work for interventions.
• There are four stages in planning and executing AMBIT social-ecological interventions:
• 1. Mapping needs and goals - for the young person and for the family
• 2. Mapping resources - in the family, in local community, in the team
• 3. Allocating tasks, identifying gaps, and strategies for managing these
• 4. Implementation.