Implementing a response to Families with
multiple problems
Wendy Weal
Deputy Delivery Manager
DCSF
Importance of the family
Parents are a strong influence in determining outcomes for young people
Research from Parenting Early Intervention Programme shows:
– Parenting support almost halved the number of parents who classified their children
as having significant behavioural difficulties
– Parents reported included being calmer with their children, more confident in
parenting, and giving more time to talking and listening to their children.
Impacts on educational attainment are well documented:
– Parental interest in education is four times more important than Socioeconomic
Status (SES) factors in influencing attainment at 16
– Parental involvement has a bigger impact on attainment at 7 & 11 than the quality of
the school even controlling for social class
Families are often a source of resilience …….But can also be a source of risk…
Parental characteristics and family circumstances are strong predictors
of future problems
Parental drug
misuse
• Parental
problem drug use associated with neglect, poverty, physical or emotional
abuse, separation and exposure to criminal behaviour
• NTA estimate
Alcohol
misuse
Domestic
violence
Safeguarding
Parental
offending
120,000 children living with adult drug users in treatment
• Alcohol misuse identified as a factor in 50% of all child protection cases
• 1.3m children live with parents who misuse alcohol
• 25% children witnessing domestic violence have serious social and behavioural
problems
• Estimates suggest at least 240,000 children exposed to DV
• Nearly 75% of Serious Case Reviews (2007 study) found that parental mental ill health,
substance misuse and or domestic violence, often in combination, were a factor
• 63% of boys with convicted fathers go on to be convicted themselves
• children of prisoners have 3 times the risk for mental health problems
• During 2005 162,000 children had a parent in prison
A small minority of families experience multiple disadvantages and have a
range of complex needs
Around 142,000 families with children experience 5 or more disadvantages including:
•
No parent in the family is in work;
•
Family lives in poor quality or overcrowded housing;
•
No parent has any qualifications;
•
Mother has mental health problems;
•
At least one parent has a long-standing limiting illness, disability;
•
Family has low income (below 60% median);
•
Family cannot afford a number of food and clothing item
Of the 142,000 families experiencing multiple disadvantage, 56,000
also experience ‘problem’ child behaviours including:
•
Special Educational Needs
•
Exclusions from school
•
Involvement with the police
•
Running away from home
Families with multiple problems cost society huge amounts of
money
Organisation Bearing
Cost
Youth Crime
Truancy
Noise – including staff time
and prosecution
Neighbourhood disputes,
nuisance behaviour
Mental Health Services
Drug and Alcohol Services
Child being taken into care
Youth Offending Team
Cost
£1,102- £31,865/ annum
School, Local Authority
£44,468/ lifetime
Local authority, social
landlord
£624.69 - £12,994/incident
Local authority, social
landlord, Police
Primary Care Trust,
Mental Health Trust
Primary Care Trust,
Mental Health Trust,
voluntary sector
Local authority
£778- £9,500
£2,740/case plus £81/ per hour
Methadone maintenance Health
Service £48/week
Residential rehabilitation £717/week
£36,653/year
Social care
Social Services
Social worker £58/ 30 mins,
Psychiatrist Social worker £108/30mins,
Other support
Local Authority,
RELATE, Citizens Advice
Bureau
Housing Benefit/other adviser £16/30
mins
Voluntary sector worker £8 0.5/30 mins
Providing integrated support can save money
•
•
•
•
Intensive intervention programmes, such as Family Intervention Projects,
provide a cost effective way of tackling the problems of the most challenging
families.
Average costs per family, per year range from around £8,000 to £20,000.
This expenditure is nominal when compared with other costs that can be
incurred by these families.
One study estimated the costs to the taxpayer as being between £250,000
and £350,000[1] per family per year.
[1] Communities and Local Government (2006) ‘Anti-social Behaviour Intensive Family Support
Projects: An evaluation of six pioneering projects’. Department for Communities and Local
Government: London
Cost to society of not working together can be even higher
Learning the Lessons from Serious Case Reviews
•
National overview of serious case reviews (where a child died or was seriously
harmed) found 75% of cases involved parental drug misuse, domestic violence or metal
ill-health
“The enmeshed interaction between overwhelmed families and overwhelmed
professionals contributed to the child being lost or unseen” – Laming report
Laming recommendations:
•
Develop guidance on referral and assessment systems for children affected by domestic
violence, adult mental health problems, and drugs and alcohol misuse
•
Adult mental health and adult drug/alcohol services should be represented on LSCBs
• Safeguarding is everyone’s business - Laming One Year On report published
• S.47 Children’s Act 1989 - LA duty to investigate safeguarding concerns
Safeguarding climate
• Initial and Core Assessments increased by more than 10% (2007/8 -08/9)
• No. of children who started to be looked after increased by 9% (2007/8 -08/9)
What do we need?
A series of changes to culture, services and systems to:
• Extend the integration of children’s services within Every Child Matters to all services working
with children, young people & adults
• Equip front-line professionals to go beyond signposting and to be confident in identifying wider
family risk issues; undertaking whole family assessments; providing family support; and/or
making referrals
Priority for local services must be to:
• Identify families in need of additional support and support to stop problems from escalating
• Strengthen family resilience; recognising parents are most influential factor in child’s life
• Provide ‘family friendly’ services that prioritise keeping parents in support
• Developing services which can respond effectively to the most challenging families
• Strengthen the ability of family members to provide care and support to each other
Identify, Assess and Support
Identify families at every level
• Strategic
• families known to all several agencies/ASB or crime hot spots? A& E data?
• Local level
• Children's centres
• Schools
• Substance misuse and adult mental health services
• Housing and Neighbourhood Police
• Multi agency panels (Team Around the Family)
Whole Family Assessment:
• Building on the CAF to gain whole family picture. Look at needs, strengths and
interrelation of problems of the whole family
• Needs good information sharing between agencies (protocols if needed)
Support plan
• Whole family support and multi agency support in order to bring about change for
whole family
Leadership and Culture
Leadership
• Ensure strong whole family leadership within the Children’s Trust
• Whole family working championing at the highest level
• Establishing area based integrated teams
• Link to other agendas such as Total Place and Safeguarding etc
• Use evidence base to market the key features of the Family Intervention service
and whole family approach
Culture change
•
•
Services being concerned about more than just ‘their’ client
Managers, practitioners and politicians taking responsibility for whole family
response
•
Supporting and challenging parents to ‘step up to the plate’ in relation to outcomes
for children
•
Keep resourcing whole family systems and culture change and service delivery
Integration between Adults and Children's Services
Planning and Commissioning
• Joint commissioning of family support services between different
agencies
• Commission evidence based programmes and interventions to meet
family needs
• Develop families intervention service
• Continue to evaluate what is working well
• Use research evidence
• Integrated co-located targeted area based services
• Market the key features of the family intensive service
Involving adults services,
the missing part of the triangle?
“Every Child Matters is already
transforming the way services are
delivered for 0-19 year olds. ‘Think
Family’ extends this model to include
adults’ services and puts families firmly at
the centre” (Social Exclusion Taskforce)
✔ Children’s
services
✔ Parenting
support
Investing in the individual child
Promoting effective parenting
• ECM integration of children’s services
• Increased investment in parenting
support in all LA’s
• Investment in education
• National Academy for Parenting
Practitioners
• 3,500 Sure Start Children Centres
Adults’ services ?
• Do adults’ services recognise and respond to the parental and family roles of their clients?
• Are we exploiting the opportunities to tackle the parent-based drivers of poor child and
family outcomes?
Guidance produced for a range of services
1. Drug and Alcohol Treatment Services
DCSF, DH and NTA alongside the National Safeguarding Delivery Unit guidance on the
development of local protocols between drug and alcohol treatment services, Safeguarding
Boards and children and family services.
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/resources-and-practice/ig00637/
2. Offender Management Services
Joint DCSF/MoJ guidance setting out how prisons and probation trusts and children’s and
family services should work together to support the children and families of offenders.
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/resources-and-practice/ig00638/
3. Mental Health Services
The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) have published guidance, endorsed by
DCSF, that sets out a whole family approach for professionals working with parents
suffering with mental ill health.
http://www.scie.org.uk/publications/guides/guide30/
Guidance produced for a range of services
4. Neighbourhood Policing
The HO, DCSF, ACPO, YJB and NPIA have produced guidance for neighbourhood policing
managers and practitioners on early intervention, prevention and whole family practice
http://www.neighbourhoodpolicing.co.uk/publication.asp
5. Services to Support Young Carers and their Families
Associations of Directors of Adult and Children’s Services published a model local protocol
setting out how services should work more closely together to prioritise support person
being cared for as well as the young carers.
http://www.adass.org.uk/images/stories/MOU%20Working%20Together%20to%20suppo
rt%20young%20carers.pdf