Agenda item

To receive the annual presentation on Gloucestershire Families First. 

63.1           The Community Development Officer indicated that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee had received a number of reports on the Gloucestershire Families First project over the years and James Saunders, Early Help Partnership Manager, and Hannah Oakshott, Family First Plus Keyworker, had attended the meeting to give an update on the work that was being undertaken and how things had changed for this approach to become ‘business as usual’.

63.2           The following key points were raised during the presentation:

·      Recap – Families First was the local name for the national Troubled Families programme; originally a three year programme (from 2012) aimed at turning around the lives of an estimated 120,000 troubled families in the country, 900 in Gloucestershire and 90 in Tewkesbury Borough; original criteria – an adult on out of work benefit, children not attending school, family members involved in crime and antisocial behaviour, high costs to the public purse, and local discretion to include other issues e.g. mental health, drug and alcohol misuse, domestic abuse.

·      Aim – To get children back into school; reduce youth crime and anti-social behaviour; put adults on a path back to work; bring down the public services currently spent on them; and, over time, change the way services are delivered – redesigning them for the longer term.

·      Evaluation – Education, employment and training – improvements in school exclusion, school behavioural problems, attendance at alternative provision, and adults in employment; crime and antisocial behaviour – improvements in youth offending, Police call-outs and domestic abuse incidents; health – improvements in adult mental health and young people using alcohol/drugs; 85% of families say they have made progress since being involved with Families First.

·      Expansion – Five year programme from 2015/16 with funding for the first year; additional 3,000 families for Gloucestershire; getting to a much wider group of families with multiple problems; greater flexibility to decide which families to work with but must prioritise highest need; payment by results based on ‘sustained and significant progress’.

·      New Criteria – Parents and children involved in crime or anti-social behaviour; children not attending school; children who need help; adults out of work or at risk of financial exclusion and young people at risk of worklessness; families affected by domestic violence and abuse; parents and children with a range of health problems.

·      Business as Usual – Developing early help and targeted support; bringing together Targeted Support teams and Families First to create Families First Plus; development of Early Help Hub; Tewkesbury was the pilot nationally for this work.

·      Working in Tewkesbury – Locality Partnership Group - health, education, Police, probation, Council services, housing, mental health, domestic abuse, substance misuse, Department for Work and Pensions, voluntary and community sector representation; Early Help Hub Allocations – provide advice, information, support and targeted support e.g. family support, community support.

·      What is Early Help? - “Early Help means providing support as soon as a problem emerges, at any point in a child’s life, from the foundation years through to the teenage years” – Working Together to Safeguard Children, Department for Education, March 2015.

·      Why Do Early Help? – Spend less on reactive and specialist services by getting involved with families and providing support before they need them.

·      Early Help Partnership – Partners: Families First Plus, Tewkesbury Borough Council, Police, schools and education, Department for Work and Pensions, housing providers, social care, health, Private Voluntary and Independent (PVI) sector, Gloucestershire Domestic Abuse Support Service (GDASS), Gloucestershire Fire Service.

·      Role of Families First Plus – Advice – every Tewkesbury Borough school has an allocated Early Help Co-Ordinator; support – training and modelling best practice; information – signposting to services; targeted family support – whole family working linked to Troubled Families Outcomes Plan; evidence-based parenting programme – now being delivered in Tewkesbury Borough.

·      Gloucestershire’s Graduated Pathway – Assess, Do, Plan. Implemented with support from the Early Help Co-Ordinator; my profile – universal services; my plan – support to meet additional needs; statutory assessment and planning – including education, Health and Care Plan, Child in Need Plan and Child in Care Plan; “my assessment my plan” – integrated assessment and planning to meet additional needs.

·      Family Support Worker Case Study – Family relocated due to ex ‘grooming’ – he received a custodial sentence; presented as homeless, mental health issues, victim of domestic abuse, out of education; multi-agency approach with Families First Plus, Tewkesbury Borough Council, Severn Vale Housing Society, education, health, InfoBuzz and GDASS.

63.3           A Member noted that 85% had reported making progress since their involvement with the programme and he questioned what had been done to address the remaining 15%.  The Community Development Officer explained that this was data from the first phase of the project so it was a question of understanding the issues; the expansion of the programme had fed into partnership working.  The Early Help Partnership Manager indicated that they continued to seek views from the families they were working with and these were fed back centrally in order to continue to develop the service going forward.  A Member queried whether any current data was available and was informed that there was a successful outcome for 82 families within Tewkesbury Borough in the last year; the target was for 700 families across the county to evidence substantial improvement i.e. three months after the intervention they were still reporting that they were in a better place and there had been no referrals, and Tewkesbury had surpassed its own target by achieving 102%.  In response to a Member query around getting people into employment, the Early Help Partnership Manager explained that two social workers from the Department for Work and Pensions worked with Families First Plus and were able to evidence this once the person had been in employment for six months.  He indicated that the data sets across the county needed some work and it was hoped to make better use of the case management system to tease out this information over the next 12 months.

63.4           The Chair thanked the representatives for their presentation.  He noted that the work done by Families First Plus was now very much “business as usual” and he sought Members’ views as to whether it was necessary for the Committee to continue to receive an annual update.  The Community Development Officer pointed out that Families First Plus was within the remit of the County Council and Tewkesbury Borough Council had no direct involvement.  The Chief Executive reiterated how successful the programme had been within the borough which was no doubt due, in part, to the co-location of the various partners within the Public Services Centre.  A Member expressed the view that this was something which all Members should be aware of, rather than just the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, and the Chief Executive suggested that a Member Update could be circulated on an annual basis, if appropriate.  It was subsequently

RESOLVED          1.  That the Gloucestershire Families First Update be NOTED.

2.  That the Gloucestershire Families First Update be removed from the Overview and Scrutiny Committee Work Programme on the basis that the work undertaken was now “business as usual” and information should instead be reported as a Member Update on an annual basis, if appropriate.