Family Trees, Genograms and Ecomap Guidance

Purpose

A family tree or genogram helps to provide a readily accessible picture of

current family relationships over three or more generations. It provides
information about key family members and shows how the child/ children sit
within the complex dynamics of their families. It is a tool that supports rapport
building and assessment and should be done with all families that we work
with. It can help social workers;

 know who is in the family

 explore family dynamics and relationships
 understand who is important in the family
 know what has happened to the family
 illuminate the way in which past and present separations, losses,
transitions and traumas have been part of family members’ life
experiences
 see intergenerational patterns of: parenting, substance misuse, mental
health or domestic abuse
 understand where the family turns for support
 Understand how the family ‘fit’ in relation to larger society –
neighbours, other organisations, their community

Principles

 Do it with the family and at their pace

 Plan your approach well, think about using different tools to capture the
information and the types of questions you will use.
 Discuss with the family who will have copies and what you will be doing
with your copy
 Try doing your own family first, that way you will understand how it
works and what it can feel like

Methods and approaches

 Use large sheets of paper- flip chart paper is best

 Take a range of colour pens
 Decide who to start with- an individual or the whole family
 Consider different approaches to gather the information, such as
different types of pictures, modelling clay, dolls houses etc depending
on the age of the child and how the family best communicate.
 Consider the impact of putting on paper, painful information about
deaths and separations and structure your visit appropriately
Genogram / family trees
Always
 Aim to be consistent in your approach
 Ensure dates of birth are put inside the symbols (rather than ages as
these change over time)
 Put names under the symbol
 Leave yourself plenty of space
 Start at the bottom with the children
 Try and work left to right with oldest on the left
 Use the symbols to denote the relationships between the adults
 Include dates of separation when known and ensure it is clear which
parent the children remain with
 Keep updated and reviewed

Optional
 Use the emotional relationship symbols to record intergenerational
issues. Put a key on the paper if you do this
 Consider whether to include pets
 Show who is living in which households by putting a dotted line around
the households

Symbols

Female adult or child

Male, child or adult

Pregnancy ,Miscarriage Abortion

Pet

Death, for example death of a male would look like this

 Relationship symbols

Enduring adult relationship/ marriage or blood

tie

Adult relationship / non- marital couple relationship

04/02/2010
Separation of a married couple, children remain with the
parent on one side of the diagonal line

04/04/2012
Divorce of a married couple in April
2002

04/02/2010 Separation of a couple

An example of a simple family tree

29/03/1983 30/02/1961

Lena Gold Larry Sunshine

26/6/1999 26/6/1999
19/09/2002

Laura Lorna Lee

a

This tells us that Lena Gold had her first children (twin girls) with Larry
when she was 16. She continues to live with him, as co-habitants, and has
had another child; she is now pregnant
 An example of a more complex family tree

This tells us that Sonia was in a relationship with Daren and they had two girls, Holly and Amy.
This ended in 1999. Sonia then met and married Ahmed who had his three boys from his
previous relationship with Teresa with him. Sonia and Ahmed had Bilal in 2006 and Ahmed
died in 2010. Sonia then met Ardita who had her two children Ariona and Sandri living with her.
Ardita and Sonia had their civil partnership in 2012.

In 2013 Sonia’s eldest daughter Holly had twins with her partner Kyle. This relationship has
ended and Holly. Olivia, Archie, Amy, Bilal, Sam. George, Ben, Ariolla and Sandri all live with
Sonia and Ardita
 Family tree showing emotional relationships and who is living in Sonia’s household

wwwwwwwwww wwwwwwww
ww

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The dotted line shows who live in the same

household together. The zigzag red line shows
violence and the blue dotted line shows neglect
Eco-maps

An ecomap is a picture that maps the connection the family has with their
community, the quality of those connections and how much energy those
connections use up.

You can do a whole family ecomap which captures the inner workings of the
family- the quality of their internal relationships as well as their external ones

You can do individual ones with children and different members of the family
to capture a greater understanding of the whole family dynamic.

There are a variety of approaches to making an ecomap. The quality of your

relationship with the child/ young person/ family and your ability to engage
them in the task will have the most significance. We have given you three
examples of different approaches to ecomaps, all using the same example of
a child, living with their mum and step dad who has had extensive dental work
and is being bullied at school.

In the first example, the child puts themselves in the middle of the paper- it
also be the middle of an Island- the galaxy or house and they then show how
they feel towards different people by how they position them on the page. In
the second example, the child is in the middle, but we use different types of
lines to show the nature of the relationship. Sometimes a relationship will vary
and the child can use more than one line to show how this is (It is important to
use a key at the side of the page). In the third example we have included a
small family tree in the middle and this can show the different relationships
within the family and how different family members can different relationships
with school, neighbours etc

You will need:

 Pens
 Paper
 Circles to draw round
 Blank outlines of Islands or favourite object of the child or young person
Guide to the symbols
Example one

Fred
who
bullies Dentist

Step-
dad

Grand
mother

Pet Mum
dog
Me
(Child’s name)

Best
Friend School
Brother

Karate In this example the child’s name goes

in the middle and they decide where to
Dad place the people in their lives.

In this example we capture how the

child feels about the members of their
family, their school and peer
experiences and their pet.
Example 2

Pet Grand
dog mother
Step-
Dentist dad

Mum

Fred Me
bullies (Child’s
) name)

School

Dad In this example we have

used different types of lines
to describe relationships.
Brother
Best Karate Two types of lines have
Friend been used for the
relationship with mum, to
show it can be good and
stressful
Example 3

Mat.
Grandma
Karate

Ben’s
school Ben
15yrs Primary
school
Aiden
Liam 8ys
10yrs
In this example of a family eco map, we can
see that Ben has a stressful relationship
with his Dad and that Aiden and Liam have
stressful relationships. The parent’s John
Mary
relationship is equal, mum has good 35yrs
32yrs
relationships with Liam and Ben, but Aiden
is hard work . Church

Dad has a stressful relationship with his

neighbours, whilst mum finds the church
Neighbours supportive. Mum’s links with the boy’s
Work school is tenuous, whilst Ben enjoys
school, and Aiden’s school find him hard
work. Aiden enjoys Karate and all the boys
enjoy relationship with Grandma, although
mum finds it requires energy from her.