Previous Reference:           Minute 116 (2017/18)

On the 3 April 2018, the Council’s Executive agreed to implement the Family Hubs model for delivering prevention and early help to babies, children and young people from October 2018.

The Interim Strategic Director, Children’s Services will submit Document “M” which  provides an update on implementation since April 2018.

Recommended-

(1)       That the progress on 0-19 Family Hubs to date be noted.

(2)       That the governance and planning to deliver against the consensus for an all ages approach to prevention and early help be endorsed and supported.

                                                (Gladys Rhodes-White – 01274 431266)

Previous Reference:           Minute 116 (2017/18)

On the 3 April 2018, the Council’s Executive agreed to implement the Family Hubs model for delivering prevention and early help to babies, children and young people from October 2018.

The Interim Strategic Director, Children’s Services submitted Document “M” which  provided an update on implementation since April 2018.

It was reported that there was a broad consensus that an all ages approach to prevention and early help across the district was secured. Such an approach would recognise and build upon the collective assets across families and communities.

The Interim Strategic Director, Children’s Services emphasised that it was important that Family Hubs and Early Prevention was effective as it impacted on the future life chances of children. Investing in Early Help would help in having happy, healthy adults.

It was reported that the Family Hubs covered West, South, East and Keighley/Shipley combined and they delivered:

·      Co-ordination and an information networks across universal and targeted support in the area;

·      Focused work which built family relationships and improves children’s outcomes;

·      Worked to reduce family poverty and support social mobility;

·      Co-location of key teams, particularly with the 0-19 children’s public health service.

It was reported that under the Family Hubs model, Children’s Services continued to provide the following services on a district-wide basis:

·         Early Help Gateway (including Families Information Service and SEND Local Offer) which would be a single point of contact for advice on prevention and early help linking together on-line and phone based advice, information and referral routes and was being fully integrated with the social work front door;

·         Oversight of educational support, including children missing from education (provided through a dedicated Education Safeguarding Service);

·         Specialist behaviour support and inclusion for children and young people with special education needs and disabilities;

·         Short breaks for disabled children and young people;

·         Intensive Family Support/Family Group Conferences to prevent children and young people coming into care.

The Interim Strategic Director, Children’s Services reported that the challenges included unintended consequences such as the reduction in resources; staff were used to working with pre school to 5 but now getting them to work 0-19; changes undertaken at a time where there was a rise in the demand for the service; feeling the tension between universal offer and targeted services; trying to identify dense area of need and poorer areas on outcomes for children and adults.

Members made the following comments:

·         Good progress being made but how long would it be before the service was to full capacity?

·         Needed to ensure that the service was working efficiently with all partnerships such as police, fire, health etc to ensure maximum impact of the service.

·         Sharing information between partners was extremely useful and needed to work across localities.

·         A coordinated approach to early help and prevention was needed supported by a programme management infrastructure.

·         The voluntary sector played a very important role; funding allocated to voluntary sector was short term which made it difficult to retain experience staff; needed sustainable funding for the voluntary sector.

·         Helping adults into employment was crucial.

·         Did the service have links with multi faith schools?

In response to the comments made it was reported that:

·         It was important that families needing help were supported properly; the service was already working with 0-19; needed to ensure that staff were assisted and their development and welfare needs were supported; next six months was to get the model bedded down and get staff feeling confident and making the maximum impact; in relation to Families First payment was received on every family that had been turned around.

·         Needed to ensure that all the partnerships were collectively working well.

·         There was a huge commitment from all partners to working together on the all age early help offer; some areas where working better than others offered potential to share learning with other areas so that the model was successful across the rest of the district.

·         Ward partnership teams could help with the work being undertaken at paragraph 2.23 relating to integrated family hubs district leadership group.

·         The Board could consider an item at the development session on the work underway to support the effectiveness and sustainability of the community and voluntary sector.

·         It was extremely important that information systems/data sharing was right; the ultimate goal was to keep children out of statutory services; information systems needed to be joined up.

·         Employment was a huge feature of outcomes.

·         The early help provision was universal and was open to all education providers.

Resolved-

(1)          That a single coordinated approach to Early Help and Prevention is created, supported by a programme management infrastructure and a proposal be submitted to the Board’s development session.

(2)      That the Board considers an item on the work underway to support the effectiveness and sustainability of the Community and Voluntary Sector.

Action:          Chief Superintendent Bradford District, West Yorkshire Police (1)