Agenda item

The Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Children and Families, the Director of Social Care and Safeguarding, and the Supporting Families First Practice Manager had been invited to the meeting to update the Panel on Supporting Families First, including the impact of COVID-19 on the service.

By way of introduction, the Director of Social Care and Safeguarding made the following main points:

·       Supporting Families First was a new team which had gone live on 20 January 2020.

·       Social workers would always act to protect a child but they also aimed to support and challenge parents to undertake their parenting responsibilities by managing risk and reducing tension, and therefore reducing the need for a child to be taken into care.

·       The management of risk was a multi-agency responsibility involving schools, the police and health partners, with significant work undertaken to ensure management of partners’ anxiety around support for children.

·       The team had continued to work throughout lockdown.  Although lockdown began on 23 March, COVID-19 had been around earlier than this and the team had responded accordingly.

The Supporting Families First Practice Manager summarised the presentation slides which had been included in the Agenda.  He made the following main points:

·       The team operated in a multi-disciplinary system aiming to wrap a plan around families.  The team worked with young people aged 10 to 18 years of age, although 3 younger children were also supported as part of sibling groups.

·       Supporting Families First worked predominantly on a Child in Need basis or where young people were subject to a Child Protection Plan.

·       The aim was for each family Member to develop practical skills through a cognitive behavioural approach which was a good way to help families gain understanding of the context of behaviours.

·       The service consisted of 3 multi-disciplinary pods working in the North East, North West and the South of the County.  Staff had lots of experience and on the whole were internal appointees.  Each team consisted of:

o   an Advanced Social Work Practitioner,

o   a Clinical Lead and three Emotional Health and Well-Being Practitioners,

o   Outreach Workers, who were the main link with the family,

o   Substance Misuse Workers, who were able to break down barriers with other services,

o   Youth Mentors with strong links with schools, and

o   A Money Mentor who was able to work with families who were at risk of losing their homes providing debt management advice and practical support.

·       The Service was currently working with 54 children, 71% aged 10 to 15, 25% aged over 16 and 3 children below the age of 10 who were part of sibling groups.

·       The Worcestershire Web Star was an assessment tool which had been developed with the aim of bringing together different disciplines, using Worcestershire Children First’s values of Happy, Healthy and Safe.  The Web Star involved families at the earliest stage and families had responded positively.  Following assessment, a plan on a page was developed which was transparent for families and made sense to social workers.  This would be re-evaluated over time.

·       The Web Star was now live and a programme of training was underway.

·       The impact of COVID-19 on service delivery had affected the Team’s ability to close cases and end involvement with families.  The Service was now able to move forward on this.

·       An evaluation of the service in period 1 (a 12-week period) found that 71% of families had reported an improvement in their family circumstances.  For those that reported a deterioration, the team was able to identify reasons for this.

·       Initially, families were overly positive in the first phase and it had taken time for them to reflect on the true reality.

·       In conclusion, it was noted that a key priority of the Service was for children to grow up with their family wherever possible.  In the first quarter, only one child had become looked after, which was a 98% success rate of keeping families together.  More detailed data would be available following evaluation of the second quarter.

Members of the Panel were given an opportunity to ask questions and the following main points were raised:

·       It was confirmed that prior to the new team being set up, this work was done in normal social work teams.  Supporting Families First was working with the ‘top end’ families where care was imminent.  The Team had additional dedicated capacity and specialisms.  It was based on the Hertfordshire model whereby all teams had a multi-agency way of working across safeguarding teams.

·       It was acknowledged that it was not possible to prevent every child coming into care.  The aim was to start this work at an early stage so that families did not reach crisis point.

·       In response to a question about how this work linked to Troubled Families, Members were informed that Troubled Families was a wider programme working at a much earlier stage.

·       It was confirmed that Supporting Families First was fully engaged with CLIMB (West Mercia Police’s Diversionary Network).

·       Members were informed that the Service was flexible about the length of time it would need to work with a family.  The initial aim was approximately 12 to 16 weeks and this was used as a guide to enable management of work-flow, as it was helpful to families and staff.  However, a case would be kept open if a crisis remained.

·       It was acknowledged that when families were asked to score their progress against a scale of 1 to 10, an increase of only one might look low.  However, for some families this would be significant and would represent the feeling that they had made some progress.  Even small numbers were an indication that something was getting better and could be very impactful.

·       The emotional health and well-being needs of parents could be significant and the team had increased the number of staff able to undertake this specialist work.  In relation to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), the thresholds for accessing the service remained a challenge.  It was important to recognise the difference between a mental health issue and an emotional and behavioural issue.

·       It was confirmed that when young people were over 18, the Service would link to adult services if an individual had a learning disability or a mental health issue.  The vulnerability of some young people over 18 who did not meet the criteria for help from adult services was acknowledged.  The Get Safe initiative (Worcestershire’s multi-agency support and protection programme for children and young people at risk of criminal exploitation) included young people up to the age of 21 or 22.  However, it was acknowledged that there was a gap in service provision and partners were trying to fill that gap within the available resources.

·       It was confirmed that this work had previously been referred to as edge of care.

The Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Children and Families emphasised the immense change that the setting up of Supporting Families First represented.  The work was not new but it did carry risks.  He felt that, strategically, this was the most significant step in Children’s Services in the last four years.  The potential rewards of the project could not be overstated and it was important to be brave and support the Service.  He wished to congratulate the Team on a superb initiative and was proud to be associated with the Service.

The Panel agreed that it would wish to receive a further update in due course.