Building Resilient Families and
Communities: Workforce
Development Plan
November 2012
1
Introduction
This document outlines the Staffordshire approach to workforce development, in response
to the challenges of our Building Resilient Families and Communities Programme. The
effective delivery of this Programme is dependent on our combined workforce having the
skills required to provide targeted and intensive support to families experiencing complex
and multiple issues through sustained intervention using whole family assessment and
working with partner agencies to effect and sustain positive change for the family, individual
members and community around them.
This programme has two principal goals. The first is to support, encourage and challenge
families with multiple difficulties to take more responsibility for their lives. The second is to
reduce the cost of these families on the public purse.
In order to maximise the opportunity that this programme presents it is vital that all
organisations who have any interaction with these families are able to share intelligence
and understanding of how their involvement is affecting that family. In this way it will be
possible to determine the most effective type of support which will deliver real visible
improvements for that family and better integrated support from the organisations involved.
This programme needs to test how best to achieve these goals and to be clear what
change needs to be made so that the families are able to sustain a better quality of life, to
raise aspirations and reduce reliance on organisations to do things for or to them. This will
require changes in systems and processes but more important it is likely to lead to
significant changes in working practices and behaviour to ensure that interaction and
engagement is the most effective it can possibly be for that family.
We need to ensure that our workforce has the support, information and skills required to
provide a professional service to the children, young people and families with whom they
work. Our aim is to develop a skilled, confident and competent workforce who can work in
partnership with agencies, carers, families and communities to support individuals and their
families to reach their potential and live safe, happy and fulfilling lives.
The skills, knowledge and understanding of employees are critical to delivering high quality
care and education to children and young people and families. The Workforce Development
plan will commission and deliver high quality opportunities to enable practitioners to make a
difference to the people they support.
The workforce plan has been developed and agreed by partners within the private;
voluntary and independent sector and outlines key priorities which reflect both local and
national challenges.
Community Safety
2
Context
In December 2011, the Department for Communities and Local Government launched a
scheme, to ‘turn around’ the 120,000 troubled families identified in England.
A ‘‘Troubled Family’’ is defined by the DCLG1 as a household where individuals:
1.
2.
3.
4.
are involved in crime and anti-social behaviour (ASB),
have children not in school,
have an adult on out of work benefits, and
cause high costs to the public purse.
The last element is determined locally to identify additional families or prioritise those
already identified as meeting the first three criteria. Government has identified 1,400
families within Staffordshire that meet these criteria broken down into three cohorts over the
life of the Programme.
It is recognised that there are valuable lessons to be learnt from former and existing
programmes and projects. Analysis of research evidence available identifies a number of
common features from interventions that are effective in tackling multiple problems faced by
families. These include:
1

A whole family approach including strengths based family assessments

Low caseloads for intensive engagement

Active engagement, enabling the family to identify what they see as their
immediate concerns and how best to work with different organisations

An intensive, flexible response that allows for support outside traditional working
hours

Use of solution focussed approaches

Intelligent use of data and information sharing between agencies

Robust family agreements and plans that sanction and reward

Assertive and persistent Key Worker role

A multi-disciplinary team to minimise duplication and maximise impact

Focus on improved parenting and the use of evidence based interventions

An approach that ‘grips’ the family and multi-agency support
DCLG Financial Framework for the Troubled Families programme’s payment-by-results scheme for local authorities March 2012
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Current Workforce
Multi-agency working brings together practitioners from different sectors and professions to
provide integrated support to meet the needs of the family. Practitioners will deliver the
programme with their specialist skills and knowledge.
The role/functions of agencies within the programme are emerging. At this early stage,
there is significant differentiation of knowledge and understanding and therefore of
workforce development needs. The intention is to ensure the programme can build skills in
delivering interventions with families which address complex needs in a cohesive and
effective way using a model of support and challenge.
The workforce development programme will address this skills gap and will offer a blended
model of delivery providing a differentiated learning programme based on the prior
knowledge and understanding of practitioners.
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Why we need a skilled workforce
A skilled workforce is vital to provide tailored support to families to enable them to become
independent and resilient.
The workforce development programme will deliver:
5

A change in culture from “helping” to families taking more personal responsibility
to be independent and resilient,

A THINK family approach across the workforce of adults and children’s services
Overview of Programme
A report produced by Department for Communities and Local Government, ‘Working with
Troubled Families: A guide to the evidence and good practice’ (December 2012), identifies
the factors which cover the range of work needed, some of which are focussed on the skills
and styles of work needed by practitioners, others are dependent on the structures and
support needed by agencies managing and supporting workers.
The report identifies five factors:

A dedicated worker, dedicated to a family

Practical ‘hands on’ support

A persistent, assertive and challenging approach

Considering the family as a whole – gathering the intelligence
Community Safety

Common purpose and agreed action
These factors will be embedded into the workforce development programme.
The Programme will enable practitioners to:
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
Develop and maintain effective partnership with parents and families using
strength based approach to help, motivate and encourage behaviour change
underpinned by a commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of
children

Work with the whole family, household and/or relevant networks to build trust and
engagement and help families feel safe and experiment with change

Work with families and other agencies to assess and regularly review the family’s
strengths, resources, needs and risks using a whole family or holistic approach

Develop effective co-ordinated multi-disciplinary relationships

Facilitate and deliver support and intervention which improve parental capacity
and family relationships

Provide appropriate ways of supporting ‘troubled families’ with deeply engrained
patterns of expectation and behaviours and where resistance to any change is
high
Content of Programme
The Programme will focus on a number of key areas. These are marked in bold in the text
below and are followed by a brief description of what each area will cover:
Families and support
- Introduces the context in which all families exist and access support and explains that
intense support for families with multiple and complex needs should be directed at enabling
families to be self sufficient.
Families with multiple and complex needs
- Explores the policy background to intense support for families with multiple and complex
needs including what is meant by this and the origins, cycles and impact that multiple and
complex needs has.
Defining the intense family support approach
- Describes some of the key elements of the intense family support approach.
Anti-social behaviour and families with multiple and complex needs
Explores what anti-social behaviour is and how consequences and action may be used to
address this behaviour.
Strengths, risks, resilience and protective factors: a strength based approach /
Evidence based practice and theory / Reflective practice
- Describes a range of standards and frameworks which come together to provide a
framework for effective family intervention.
Engaging with families
- Explores the reasons why families struggle to engage with services and how to support
families overcome barriers to engagement.
Assessment of families
- Explains the rationale for and importance of, whole family assessment in the intense
family support approach.
Setting and achieving goals with families
- Describes the process of goal setting and how / why it is used. The role of the key worker
in supporting families to access resources to achieve their goals is explored, as well as
identifying the needs of families creating long term and small step goals, bringing it all
together in family support or action plans.
Co-ordinating multi-agency work with families
- Describes some of the key skills, processes and knowledge that need to be in place for an
effective co-ordinated multi-agency approach, which is at the centre of intense support to
families with multiple and complex needs.
Supporting families through the process of change / Social learning theory /
Parenting interventions / Motivational interviewing / Solution Focussed Brief Therapy
/ Cognitive Behavioural Therapy / Change Model
- Presents a model for understanding the process of change and the tasks and strategies
which support that process. Building on the anti-social behaviour elements to outline a
range of ways to address anti-social behaviour and promote positive behaviour. Provide an
awareness of Social Learning Theory, parenting interventions, Motivational Interviewing,
Solution Focussed Brief Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Theory. (N.B. Special training
in any of these methods would be required).
Preparing families to exit family intervention
- To plan a graduated exit from the family as the outcomes have been achieved and the
family become more empowered to take control.
Community Safety
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Strengthening Families
The Strengthening Families Programme is for families with children aged from 10 to 14 to
help prepare for teenage years. The 7 week evidence-based programme is aimed at
reducing alcohol and drug use, behavioural problems in adolescence and strengthening the
parent/carer relationship. Through discussion, games and activities, families solve problems
together, learn about rules and consequences and explore ways to show love and support,
strengthening family relationships.
Families can lack support when they need it most. We are targeting families through Local
Support Teams to reach families and help them strengthen family bonds. The programme is
unique in the way it brings parents and children, together.
40 Staffordshire County Council staff have been trained to deliver the programme via
Families First Local Support Teams. The next phase will be to develop a partnership
approach to future delivery and ensure service delivery is integrated so that families do not
have to be concerned about organisational boundaries or numerous un-coordinated
interventions.
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Budget
This Workforce Development Plan will inform the commissioning of high quality
development opportunities to support practitioners to make a difference to the children and
families they support (e.g. work with visitors centres within prisons).
This will be supported, by DCLG grant and needs to be aligned to partners’ own Workforce
Development Plans.
Work will be undertaken with each district to identify local needs and commission bespoke
training to address these needs.
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Outcomes / Evaluation
All training will be evaluated to inform the next steps. In addition, a multi-agency practitioner
focus group will support development of the programme.
Within twelve months of the launch of the Programme, a multi-agency conference will be
organised to reflect on progress made to date and inform next step delivery.
Barbara Hine
Programme Development Manager
November 2012