Our Eight Core Elements

These are the elements that form the framework for all our activities.

1. Persistence and stickability

Young people referred to Includem have experienced a great deal of rejection from their family, their school and their community. We make a commitment to stick with them no matter what happens.

Stickability starts at the point of referral. Once a local authority has referred a young person, we commit ourselves to that person. These young people lead such chaotic lives, so we go out and meet them wherever they are comfortable. We pursue them until they accept the offer of engagement. This can take many attempts (the record is 27). In addition, even after the contracted period of our involvement is completed, we offer relapse prevention support on a voluntary basis.

Research has shown that support beyond the statutory children’s panel order for up to 2 years reinforces progress made and reduces reoffending by 86%.

2. Intensive supervision and support

The core of the Includem approach is intensive support and supervision from a suitably qualified and/or experienced project worker, based on a close relationship.

The relationship is professional, based on respect, honesty and care. It is about challenging and confronting harmful behaviour while offering support, pro-social role modelling and the opportunity to learn new skills.

Contact time with a young person is an average of eight hours one-to-one per week, and often substantially more during the early period of forming a relationship and during time of crisis.

3. Consistency of worker and young person relationships

The key relationship for the young person is with their designated project worker. Other workers help with particular elements or tasks and build secondary support relationships.

This scaffolding of support involves assistant project workers (full time staff) and mentors (sessional staff working three to six hours per young person per week) and is sometimes supplemented by Includem voluntary befrienders.

4. Help and support at times of need, including evenings and weekends

From experience and research, young people in trouble need support most in the evenings and at weekends.

The normal working week for all Includem staff is Sunday–Saturday, 8am–10pm. Staff work their 37 hours a week flexibly over seven working days to meet the needs of the young people they are supporting.

Includem’s helpline
We offer a 24/7 phone and text helpline to all young people on referral to us and their main family carers. Each of our services has its own helpline, linked locally to a staff member on call who will know the young person and their circumstances. Where required and with management agreement, staff will go out at any time to support a young person in crisis.

Where home situations are at risk of breaking down we can access our residential crisis services or offer respite for the young person with an Includem specialist foster carer.

These services can be accessed very quickly. They also allow continuity of relationships for the young people.

5. Working in partnership with parents and carers

Includem staff always work closely with parents, carers and other family members as a key part of the support network for young people at risk and in trouble. When relationships have become broken, fractured or diffuse, our staff work hard to develop and maintain links, even in the most unpromising situations, if this is of benefit to the young person.

Research on our activity reinforces how supportive most parents find this kind of intensive support and how much they value the availability of 24/7 helpline support.

6. Active brokerage role, working in partnership with other agencies

All the young people on referral to Includem have needs across a wide range of areas, including health, addictions, housing, relationships, learning and employment. This requires links to many agencies and departments.

We perform a brokerage role in negotiating the young person’s access to specialist and general services in order to create an individual support package for him or her.

We work in partnership with statutory and voluntary services to reconnect excluded young people to the community supports.

We also recognise that agencies are themselves often reluctant to engage with these young people, who can be challenging and aggressive. We will support agencies to operate in ways which reduce these risks.

7. Rigorous approach to risk management and management support

Our services are not centre-based. They go out to young people wherever they are, in their homes and communities.

Includem staff usually work on their own, not in pairs or groups. This is an integral part of the relationship-focused approach. But it does mean workers are in situations where there is often a degree of risk. We have rigorous risk assessment and health and safety procedures to ensure the protection of staff.

All front-line workers have constant availability of management support on a 24-hour basis and procedures are in place for regular staff monitoring, support and training.

8. Continuous measurement of effectiveness

Rigorous monitoring and evaluation have been built into Includem’s development since the start:

  • Between 2000–6 our services were evaluated by Glasgow University’s Centre for the Child and Society. Consistent evidence confirmed the effectiveness of our model.
  • Since 2006 research, evaluation and quality assurance for our core provision has been conducted by in-house teams using baseline and follow-up interviews with young people, parents/carers, Includem staff and social workers.
  • Internal monitoring is complemented by commissioned external research: for example, in 2007 on the value of the contribution of Includem’s Intensive Support and Supervision to the Intensive Support and Monitoring Restriction (‘tagging’) pilots in Scotland.

A summary of all evaluation findings confirm the following key outcomes:

  • Re-offending rates as low as 17% for the challenging group targeted by Includem (official statistics suggest 54% re-offending rate)
  • This reduced risk of re-offending is strongly linked to our support
  • Our workers help to improve young people’s confidence, self-esteem, life-coping skills, employment /education opportunities and re-integration into society
  • Sustained improvement requires long-term tapered support beyond the period of ‘formal’ orders. This is necessary because of the complexity of needs, the damage the young people have sustained through long histories of abuse or neglect, and the lack of stable adult support or care provided to them.