Praise but no funding for troubled teen service Families First

A therapy service that claims huge success with troubled teens is in danger of closure because it is almost entirely reliant on charity despite getting most of its referrals from State agencies.

The Families First programme run by the Archways initiative is funded mainly by Atlantic Philanthropies, which is withdrawing from Ireland next year, leaving huge uncertainty over the future of the service.

Therapist, Alice Ann Lee, said the State had yet to commit any significant funding to Families First despite the fact that 84% of the referrals to the programme came from state agencies.

“We are getting over 80% of our referrals from State agencies. They are just not paying for it. This doesn’t make sense particularly when the results are so convincing and the lives of vulnerable adolescents and families are being turned around so dramatically,” she said.

Families First, a whole family programme based on the functional family therapy (FFT) model developed in the United States, aims to help teenagers whose lives are out of control and who are in trouble at school or with the law or both, and who are often also suicidal or battling addiction and depression.

Referrals come from the Child and Family Agency (Tusla), the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, the Garda Youth Diversion Project, and schools but Archways could only set up the service because Atlantic Philanthropies gave it €730,000.

According to an independent evaluation published yesterday, more than 50% of teenagers with “complex mental, emotional, and behavioural problems” referred to it were considered clinically recovered following their participation.

That compares to a recovery rate of just 18% for similar teenagers who only received the standard state supports which usually work with the young person alone, and not their family.

The evaluation, of 98 cases handled over six years, was carried out by a transatlantic team including Prof Alan Carr, head of the school of psychology at University College Dublin.

They said the drop out rate of 7% was “remarkably low” and that the results “showed conclusively that FFT is an effective treatment for adolescent behaviour problems in an Irish context”.

They said international studies showed FFT to be “exceptionally cost-effective” with one study finding the cost of putting a family through the programme was repaid six times in savings to the criminal justice system.

“These findings suggest that there are probably significant cost-savings in terms of criminal justice and crime victim costs arising from the Archways Families First FFT service,” they said.

“As such, the expansion of FFT to other locations, populations and service delivery systems in Ireland is warranted.”

Families First is run only in Dublin but Archways would like it to expand.

“We hope that this amazing and proven family therapy programme can be continued at least and ideally extended to other areas and other families,” said Ms Lee.

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