City of York YorOK Board

14 September 2015

TITLE: Update on York’s Family Focus Programme
Summary
This item provides the Board with a summary of Phase 1 of York, Family Focus Programme during the three years 2012/13 to 2014/15.
Further detail is attached for information at Annex 1.
Phase 1
York’s Phase 1 Target: to ‘turnaround’ 315 families identified as meeting the national criteria.
Aims:
  • join up local services
  • deal with each family’s problems as a whole rather than responding to each problem, or person, separately
  • appoint a single key worker to get to grips with the family’s problems and work intensively with them to change their lives for the better for the long term
  • use a mix of methods that support families and challenge poor behaviour.
Five key family intervention factors outlined by Government:
  • A dedicated worker, dedicated to the family
  • Practical, ‘hands on’ support
  • A persistent, assertive and challenging approach
  • Considering the family as a whole – gathering the intelligence
  • Common purpose and agreed action
Expected Outcomes:
  • children back into school
  • reduction in youth crime and anti-social behaviour
  • adults in work or on a path to employment
  • reduction in the high costs these families place on the public sector each year
Outcomes Achieved: Target achieved = 100% (i.e. 315 families were ‘turned around’).
271 Families achieved Education and Crime/ASB outcomes
41 Families had adults achieve Progress to Work outcomes
44 Families had adults gain continuous employment outcomes
What worked well?
Approximately 85% of Phase 1 families received Intensive whole family intervention, which was undertaken over the 3 years by Catalyst Family Intervention Keyworkers, Integrated Family Service Practitioners and latterly, Family Focus Practitioners, using the 5 key intervention factors for intervention. The majority of these staff gained the City & Guilds, Level 4 Working with Parents: Families with Multiple & Complex Needs qualification to support and develop their skills in this way of working.
This meant those families:
  1. had a dedicated worker, with a low caseload, who was dedicated to their family, who was able to build a trusting relationship
  2. received a persistent, assertive and challenging approach, including the use of rewards and sanctions where necessary
  3. were considered holistically as a whole family in order to understand the family journey; all issues for all family members, how issues/problems for each member were interacting with and impacting on other family members and the patterns of behaviour.
  4. there was common purpose and agreed actions as a result of their holistic whole family assessment and family action plan, which was co-ordinated by their lead worker and supported by the team around the family.
Other areas of learning
  1. a ‘Health Professional’ in the team was really beneficial and supported the development and improvement of pathways to health, swift assessments of family health needs, effective planning to meet needs. ‘On tap’ case advice for workers was available and every family on the programme registered with a GP and dentist - a high percentage were not registered on entering the programme.
  2. there was high incidences of poor family mental health and well-being. The underlying problems were often the cause of the worklessness, ASB or truancy. It was critical to address mental health issues as early on in the intervention as possible if progress was to be successful.
  3. drug and alcohol misuse in families was common and having a significant impact on behaviours and relationships.
  4. the use of rewards and sanctions used appropriately were powerful. Sanctions were used in agreement with partners, where families were reluctant to engage and change. Small rewards when families made good progress motivated families further and were not costly.
  5. access to a small ‘Families Budget’ often provided essential resources to support families in getting ‘off the ground’ and secure swift engagement.
  6. working effectively with the Community & Voluntary Sector provided both practical and much needed additional emotional support for families
  7. support in the family home to put parenting strategies into practice was crucial to success for many families. Many parents had attended available parenting programmes, yet they had been unable to put the strategies learned into practice in the home. This approach ‘scaffolded’ parents to achieve positive change.
  8. many were experiencing difficult economic circumstances, with some parents having been unable to get work, despite their efforts and others were not motivated to try as it felt overwhelming. Practitioners felt they were pushing a few families into further poverty by encouraging them to find work, as they seemed worse off coming off benefits and being in part-time, often low paid employment.
  9. robust exit planning was needed to support the sustainability of progress made by a family, ‘a safety net’, in the form of ongoing support from one or two universal agencies, a volunteer mentor/buddy, newly formed circle of interdependence in their community or simply having information easily available about who they should contact if issues arise, whether these are old or new issues.
  10. the programme data requirements are complex and require a good level of skill
  11. we could be intervening sooner! Workers felt there have been cases when intervention could have happened sooner and that some families were being excluded from the whole family support model because they did not meet the Phase 1 criteria.
Phase 2
The extended Phase 2 programme criteria will allow for much earlier intervention to be possible – more families, more troubles!!
Recommendations
Board members re asked to:
  • Note progress, outcomes and learning from Phase 1 of the Programme;
  • Support the delivery of phase 2 of the programme over the next five years;
  • Receive further reports in the future.

Author: Linda Murphy, Family Focus Service Manager , City of York Tel: 01904 55 5707
Date: 7 September 2015