National Child Protection offers hope for recovering families

Evidence based, early intervention programs are showing a tremendous success rate in keeping vulnerable and damaged families together, with the program showing great results locally.

The Multisystemic Therapy for Child Abuse and Neglect (MST-CAN) program is being conducted by therapists at Marathon Health here in Dubbo.

One patient, who has been given a pseudonym for privacy and safety reasons, says the program has helped him turn his life around from one of it's darkest points.

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"I was going through a really, really rough patch, I can't thank them enough, I've been going through quite a few other programs and none of them have been able to help me like this group," 'John' said.

John, who struggled with depression and related anger issues, says the treatment has helped him keep his family together.

"It's been terrific, life's so much better now, I spend so much more time with the kids than I used to, the kids are so much happier and more settled," John said.

The program, which utilises a variety of strategies, including medical treatment regimens and a focus on socialising and therapy, usually runs for six to nine months, with John currently sitting at the seventh month mark.

"It really does help to have someone there you can count on," John said.

"They've helped me through a lot of that, along with a few friends on the outside of the program, if anyone's out there; don't hang back, if you need help, ask them, nothing's ever an issue with them."

Therapist Fiona Simmons is one of the workers at Marathon Health assisting people and someone John refers to as an 'absolute rock'.

"Since she's been on board, everything's changed for me, I can't thank them all enough," John said.

She says the program is targeted and looks at a variety of factors and plans out a number of therapeutic strategies before engaging with the families.

"It initially started int he States and has now migrated to Australia, the model is definitely the reason why we're seeing such good results and why there's a 42 percent decrease in the number of children going into out of home care," Ms Simmons said.

While the model is adaptive, there are challenges that come with working rurally.

"Particularly for us, we want to make sure that families are able to keep being supported and keep going without us involved once the program ends, which can be difficult," Ms Simmons said.

National Child Protection Week runs from 6 September to 12 September.