To comment on the Cabinet report.

The Panel considered the Cabinet report on the progress of the Intensive Family Support Programme (IFSP).

The Panel were informed that  the Troubled Families programme was launched in April 2012. The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (RBWM) had been delivering early help support services for Troubled Families through the Intensive Family Support programme (IFSP) since April 2012.  RBWM made the decision to deliver this programme by setting up a specialist team that could work intensively with families. This team was known as the Intensive Family Support Service.

The Panel were informed that troubled families were families where children where persistently absence or excluded from school, if a young person was involved in crime or anti-social behaviour and where parents were not working, affected by domestic abuse, drug and alcohol issues and parents or children with some health problems.  

The programme allowed officers to work with families and prevent statutory intervention.  When successful families were classed as ‘turned around’ when they were enabled to make changes to their lives.

RBWM had worked with 484 families overall since April 2012 but directly worked with 301 families with 214 families that have considered to have “turned” their lives around.

A payment by results approach had been designed to demonstrate tangible success through the outcomes for each family. The Royal Borough has put in place robust result verification and validation systems to secure assurance that payment by results claims were genuine and evidence-based.  The Government will undertake regular spot checks of a sample of claims for payment and should the Royal Borough be spot checked officers were confident that everything required could be evidenced to satisfy scrutiny.

Members were informed that the programme was delivered in two stages, phase one ran from 2012- 2015 and phase two from 2015- 2020.

During phase one of the project, 209 families had been worked with and 160 of those received direct support with 140 of these families being assessed as achieving sustainable change and therefore are considered to have been ‘turned around’.  RBWM had made Payment By Results for the 140 families turned around.

The target for phase 2 was to work with and turn around 460 families which would require working with 660 families. To date RBWM had currently worked with 275.  In 2016 -17 57 families had been ‘turned around’.

Phase two used the knowledge gained form phase one to achieve continued significant and sustained progress for families within the framework of early intervention to reduce the demand on statutory services.

The Panel were informed that families were put on  the programme via referrals from professionals or the public through the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) or via intelligence sources from partners, for example, families that may be at risk of financial exclusion, homelessness or families who were known to police through their community workers.

Work with families could last for up to a year with the average of nine months to ensure changes are sustained. The borough had 5 keyworkers with capacity to work directly with approximately 45 families at any point.

The Panel were informed that RBWM was one of the few local authorities whose delivery of the Troubled Families programme had provided intensive therapeutic and practical support to families attached to the programme for an average of nine months. A more intensive service than that provided through statutory provision.

There were a range of different strategies currently being used including family meetings or mediations to address presenting concerns. There was a specialist parenting worker undertaking targeted work within the Muslim community, including a parenting programme linked to Islamic values, which was unique in the UK. Research had been undertaken with  local Scholars and the Muslim College to develop a booklet with information about Islamic values which could be used in conjunction to the Parenting Links programme. 

The Chairman reported that she was the Lead Member for Children’s Services when the programme was introduced and was please to see how it had been picked up and developed creating better outcomes for families.

Cllr E Wilson asked what difference the scheme had made and was informed that it was aimed at families jus below intervention and if the scheme was not in place there would be more statutory intervention.

Cllr E Wilson asked if the families came from all parts of the borough and Cllr Airey replied that families came from different areas and were referred via a number of agencies.  There had been targeted work in the Muslim community and in Cllr E Wilsons ward there would have also been work undertaken due to army families. 

The Chairman asked if the Panel could have a future agenda item on the distribution of families throughout the borough and the Director of Children’s Services suggested that an annual report could be brought back with this level of detail. 

Cllr Jones recommended that visual mapping showing hotspots should be included as well as spider diagrams showing how the programme worked.

Cllr Jones also asked if the scheme was funded externally and was informed that it was funded via a mixture of the transitional grant, payment via results and additional funding via partner agencies. 

Cllr Evans asked that as we had a self verification process were we confident that the scheme was making a permanent outcome.  The Panel were informed that at the end of intensive support the families may continue to get support from other agencies and re-referrals were monitored to see if there had been a permanent impact.   

Cllr Evans mentioned it would be useful to see if the work also had an impact on children’s academic attainment and if there were certain factors that pushed a family towards needing support.

The Panel were informed that support was tailored to individual family needs and that within the borough we were talking about a small percentage of families.  The Government undertook national reviews that helps shape services along with local knowledge.

Cllr Airey reported that the Government had questioned why our self assessment results were lower then other authorities and we had replied that it was because we had a robust assessment process with very high standards as we were concerned about results more then money. 

Resolved unanimously: that The Children’s Services O&S Panel considered the Cabinet report and fully endorsed the recommendations.  The Panel felt that future reports should include visual mapping showing hotspots in the borough and how the service works via a spider diagram.  Future reports would benefit by showing how the service linked to other services and agencies and the long term benefits to families.