Demonstrating the mapping technique: La Trobe's
Margarita Frederico, left, and Berry Steet's Carly
Black, research officer of 'Take Two'.

When asked to draw a 'map' ofthe important people in his life, eleven-year-old 'Shane' did not mention friends, and put his mother on the outer as someone who had failed to provide him with emotional and practical support.

Two years later – after regular and intensive help to deal with trauma caused by abuse – Shane's 'social network map' was radically different, reflecting that he had been able to return home to live with his mother, and had begun to control his anger to the point where he could make, and keep, supportive friends.

Shane (not his real name) is one of 102 children at the Victorian Governmentfunded 'Take Two' program providing therapy for children traumatised by abuse, to benefit from the trial of social mapping as a new evaluation method.

Associate Professor Margarita Frederico, Head of the School of Social Work and Social Policy and the principal research and evaluation consultant to Take Two, says social network mapping is beginning to prove its value for assessing formal and informal support networks for traumatised children and young people and whether they can draw on these relationships for emotional and practical support.

Used with other measures, social mapping helps therapists evaluate the most effective methods for rehabilitation, taking into account the children's own perspectives.

Of 1,232 young people up to eighteen years of age who have been assisted by the Take Two program since its inception in 2004, Shane and the other children in this pilot group are the first invited to contribute to their rehabilitation with the help of social mapping.

The social map was developed in the United States and has been used there for more than eighteen years to evaluate social and emotional supports, primarily for adults.

It was introduced to Take Two in 2004 for young people. The La Trobe researchers believe they are the first to use the technique so extensively with children, some as young as six years of age.

Ms Frederico says children in Shane's group were asked to draw maps when they first entered the program. These were then used as a baseline for six-monthly progress reviews.

'We can use these maps,' she says, 'to see what the children's support networks are at one stage, and then re-evaluate them later. In Shane's case, we are now seeing a young person who is doing much better. He is stable at school, has friends, is no longer moving from placement to placement – and his social network maps reflect these changes through his own eyes.'

Ms Frederico says Take Two only uses mapping with children deemed likely to benefit. Therapists use the map to talk about what the young person is going through.

The children's social maps have revealed:

• Family members are highly significant to a child's view of the world, even to children who do not live with their families. Sixty-eight per cent included their mothers in their social maps, although only eight per cent of those were living with one or both parents. Ninety per cent listed one or more siblings.
• For a small percentage, parents are not even on the social radar. They did not list either parent, although all had at least one living parent. More than half did not mention their fathers.
• Friends are often described as being unsupportive, with only twenty-six per cent of children describing one or more friends as providing practical support.

Ms Frederico says more extensive trialling is needed before the usefulness of social maps as an assessment tool can be fully determined. However, anecdotal evidence from clinicians has been overwhelmingly positive about its role in providing base-line evaluation of young people's social supports and allowing them to open up about relationships that are important to them.

Ms Frederico says a separate project is underway in partnership with the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency and Take Two to determine culturallyappropriate ways to assess the social and emotional well-being of Aboriginal children.

The Take Two program is funded by the State Government under the auspices of Berry Street, in partnership with La Trobe University, the Austin Hospital, Mindful (Centre for Training and Research in Developmental Health) and the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency.