Date: 13th February 2013
REPORT TITLE: Family Solutions 2013-15 (Families with Complex Needs)
Report by Alastair Gibbons
Contact details: Telephone: 07786 125 363
e-mail:
1. Purpose of report
1.1This report requests that Schools Forum continue to contribute to targeted early intervention services through redirecting a portion of its Early Help funding to Family Solutions for 2013/14 and 2014/15 to support a much improved targeted early help offer for children and their families and to pave the way for expected savings in future years.
2. Recommendations
2.1That Schools Forum agree to redirect £757k of current base budget allocation for 2013/14 and 2014/15 to the new Family Solutions service and to receive regular reports on the effectiveness and efficiency of the programme.
3. Relevance to Strategic Plans
3.1As part of the whole Essex community budget programme, a programme to provide acountywide information, advice and guidance service, eight family solutions multi-agency teams (including a schools link worker with an education background in each team) and a volunteer programme has been developed. This programme is called Family Solutions and incorporates the Government’s Troubled Families initiative in Essex.
3.2For background, the full business case is available at:
3.3Four Family Solutions Teams have just been established in each quadrant, and there will be a further four (two per quadrant) by October 2013. The teams will be multi-disciplinary with staff from a range of backgrounds including Education, drugs and alcohol, adult mental health, youth work, CAMHS and social work. By summer 2013 there will be an information, advice and guidance hub and at this point the current multi-agency allocation groups (MAAGs) will end. The hub will offer information, advice and guidance to all schools, replacing CAFPoint and MAAGS referrals. The hub will also be the point of referral of any child into the Family Solutions team for that area.The hub and the teams will enable schools to reduce the numbers of CAFs and lead professional roles that they undertake.
3.4The Family Solutions programme will be Essex’s targeted early help offer as recommended by the Munro Review of Child Protection report 2011. There has been wide consultation on new guidance and a new windscreen on need as set out in ‘Effective Support for Children and Families in Essex’ which will be ratified by the Essex Safeguarding Children Board in March.
3.5Family Solutions is designed to provide a long-term sustainable model of intervention with families that reduces high end reactive costs such as special school placement, school exclusion, the use of pupil referral units and other alternative education provision. Family Solutions will work with families where there are significant school attendance and child behaviour problems beyond which schools can reasonably be expected to address. In addressing these problems in a family centred way and engaging with parents, the service will enable children referred to improve their participation, concentration and attainment at school. Each team will work with up to 180 families a year, through a key worker approach. Families will remain in the programme between three months and a year. A family and professional progress evaluation system will help measure progress on agreed changes throughout participation in the programme.
3.6 All schools have a responsibility to provide early help and work with other agencies to address the child’s additional needs as soon as these arise. Family Solutions will provide a service to schools where the child’s needs are greater than they can be expected to deal with.
4.Finance Implications
The table below summarises the programme for 2012/13 and the next 2 years:
Of the new investment a contribution from Schools Forum for 2013/14 and 2014/15 has been identified as £757k. It is proposed that this will be funded by redirecting budget which currently is used on early intervention work with children through the MAAGs process and integrated workforce development. This funding was previously for ‘narrowing the gap’, for ‘extended services’ and for workforce development and training.
It should be noted that the new investment is already net of opportunity costs which have been identified through re-directing existing staff resource and partner in kind contributions. Discussions are on-going to fund the residual balance.The new investment is also net of funding available through the Government’s Troubled Families Programme.
The funding will be used in a more focused and targeted way as a contribution to the overall staffing and resourcing of the Family Solutions teams so that they are able to respond effectively to referrals from schools.
If the programme is successful, continued funding will be sought at a similar level in 2015/16 and beyond.
5. Benefits
The Programme in total
A benefit realisation matrix for the total Family Solutions has been undertaken which sets out at a very high level some of the financial and non-financial benefits that can be directly attributed to this programme. The total programme cashable benefits areestimated as £41mcumulatively by 2022:
Specifically for Schools Forum
In total, of these accrued benefits,£9.4m are aligned to budgets for the overall schools budget.
Benefits have been modelled to the schools budget as a result of the Family Solutions Programme and these include reduced exclusions, reduced use of PRU and external school placements and some reduction in SEN placements outside mainstream schools, as well as overall improved attainment for children of families going through the programme. These benefits will free up DSG resources in future years.
The table below outlines the areas where benefits have been specifically aligned to schools from 2013/14 to 2021/22:
Social Benefits
Family Solutions seeks to increase community cohesion and the wellbeing of individuals and families by working actively with the most disadvantaged families in each community of Essex. This will enable all family members to take advantage of education, health, leisure/sport, and employment opportunities, as well as improve relationships between family members and decrease isolation within the local community. This will result in improved educational achievement, health, employment and emotional well-being and in a reduction in crime, anti-social behaviour, domestic violence, addiction and in the high level reactive (failure) costs associated with these.
6. Consultation with Stakeholders
Throughout 2012 there was widespread consultation concerning assessment referral and access routes to services. Schools were involved in consultation events in each district. The result of the consultations has informed the thinking and development of the Family Solutions programme and the early help guidance, the ‘Effective Support’ document and windscreen.
7. Background / Supporting Papers
- Effective support windscreen
1