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Who Is Options180
We are a team of highly experienced social care and allied professionals based in West London whose main focus is to empower families to help achieve positive change for children living with adversity. We offer a unique approach to family assessment and support, combining the two approaches to ensure the immediate welfare needs of the child are met while assessing the parent's/carer's capacity to change with robust recommendations.
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We focus upon working with all vulnerable families in need of support, with a particular focus on addressing the co-occurrence of parental substance misuse, mental health and domestic abuse that can affect long-term child development.
Our Mission
Our mission is simple, yet profound: we empower families to thrive despite adversity. We deliver social care with a difference.
Where multiple adverse issues exist in families, traditional responses using individual interventions do not work. Families are often faced with having to repeat information to different professionals undertaking detailed assessment before accessing the right services to address immediate risk. This leads to delay for the family receiving timely interventions. This was highlighted in Re: M [2014] EWFC B158, by HHJ Stephen Wildblood KC, where he highlights in a family law case, "If therapy were to be obtained at an early stage such as that there is at least a prospect that outcomes in some cases might be different."
Our approach is different. We take the view that therapeutic interventions surrounding hidden harm concerns, alongside skills-based parenting teaching can be effective and should be offered alongside parental assessment of need/capacity. We advocate that where possible support should be offered in the community where the family is based and that children should remain with their parents when this is safe enough to do so.
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To this end we work with a variety of families involved in pre and post court proceedings - public law and private law, families involved in child protection plans and families who require intensive interventions but may not meet the threshold for a residential parenting assessment or be unsuitable for residential rehabilitation We also work towards assessing and reunifying separated families where this is deemed safe as well as supporting children and separated parents seeking to establish contact.
Our Approach
Why Choose Options180?
Innovative alternative to costly residential assessments and/or foster care placements: We offer a package of tailored support in the community while undertaking assessments, maintaining child stability with their parent/main care-giver, where this is safe.
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Streamlined Interventions: Unlike the fragmented approach of involving multiple agencies with recurring interventions, we offer a cohesive assessment and support service in one place. We foster a synergistic approach to assessment and support within a multi-disciplined team of professionals.
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Significant cost-savings: A comparative cost/benefit analysis vis-à-vis residential assessments and/or foster care shows long term economic benefits, offering a 'one-stop' resource for assessment and support while also reducing the emotional cost to the child of separation from their care-giver, where this can be prevented with alternative interventions.
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Child-focused Outcomes: We ensure parents are able to fully engage with all aspects of their assessment/support by having a child-friendly timetable and the offer of a creche for babies under 2 years. We want parents to continue to maintain their day to day care responsibilities for the child/ren while accessing interventions. We also offer children direct therapeutic play/counselling support sessions alongside the parent/carer's engagement.
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So why choose Options180? Because we offer a high quality and unique array of services geared towards empowering families and safeguarding the well-being of children in the long term. While our flagship Turnaround service is located in West London, our wider service is peripatetic, meaning that we are able to work in different geographical locations across the South East responding to need within the family's local community, maintaining child stability.
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