Maternal Alienation - South Australian Policy Online

The Project as Change Agent building the Capacity of ExistingServicesWorking across sectors the project aimed to develop sharedunderstandings and more integrated services to children and womenaffected by violence. The early months of the project were spent indeveloping these intersectoral relationships, which would have beenconsolidated further if the project had received more funding. Systemschange takes time, and the project was funded for eleven months.However, within this time, the project took the role of a change agent toenhance the capacity of existing services. In this area there were severalnotable achievements and opportunities:• As a result of Family and Youth Services’ (FAYS) involvement withthe project and a subsequent workshop with a small group of FAYSworkers, FAYS are considering how to disseminate the knowledgeabout maternal alienation more widely, and to integrate theinformation into their practice guidance in working with childrenand families.• Western Domestic Violence Service and some of the servicesinvolved with Reverberations in the western area are developingprograms for women and children based on the project's findings.One such program is “Mum and Me”, a pilot program developed withOccupational Therapy students. Their “Footprints” program withchildren is being changed to accommodate knowledge of maternalalienation.• Workers in the Family Reach-Out Program (North-West Childrenand Families Integration Program) reported that they foundnotable improvements when they utilised information they hadgained on maternal alienation. They are developing further tools towork with these issues.• Individual workers within community and women's health serviceshave been using the ideas in their practice, reporting very positiveoutcomes.• Violence Intervention Programs and programs that work with menwho use violence have begun to use the knowledge about maternal8