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

The Strategic Director, Children’s Services will submit Document “I” which provides an update on implementation since April 2018 with a specific focus on area based outcomes and planning.

Recommended-

That the Committee notes the report (Document “I”), progress to date and supports the on-going co-production of the Family Hubs offer.

                                                                        (Jim Hopkinson – 01274 432904)

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

The Strategic Director, Children’s Services submitted Document “I” which provided an update on implementation since April 2018 with a specific focus on area based outcomes and planning.

It was reported that the Family Hubs model would continue to provide the following services district-wide:

·         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;

·         Oversight of educational support, including children missing from education (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.

Each of the four area Family Hubs prevention and early help team would be made up of:                     

·         1 x FTE Family Hubs team manager

·         2 x FTE Senior Family Key Workers each supervising 7 x FTE Family Key Workers (14 x FTE in total).

·         1 x FTE Senior Prevention Worker supervising 7 x FTE Prevention Workers and 1 X FTE Access & Take Up Worker

·         Business Support Officers

It was reported that each area would also be supported by key workers (‘one worker, one family, one plan’) provided under the Families First and Stronger Families projects lead by Barnardos. Bradford Council had commissioned a keyworker service for vulnerable families across the Bradford district that met the national ‘Troubled Families’ criteria (named Families First in Bradford) and locally set criteria.

Members commented on the following issues:

·         There was no mention of involving primary care; GP’s had meetings to discuss serious cases but 2/3 health visitors were not able to share information as they were working in a different team; health visitors and school nurses relationship was not good as there was a lack of communication.

·         The accuracy of the paragraph relating to additional funding to increase the number of Prevention Workers and Key Workers needed looking at (4.2 of the report).

·         What would be the impact of fewer staff on service delivery and what effect would this have on the outcomes?

·         How did the Service work with hard to reach communities?

·         Better Start had data which could be used thus avoiding duplication and maximising resources.

·         It was important to have effective communication between all the agencies involved.

·         Bradford was being talked about in other areas as a good model for Children’s services.

·         Did the service have figures of people that they were not able to help?

·         Was the information reviewed on the number of people where there was no further action in case they needed to be placed back into the system?

In response to Members questions it was reported that:

·         A mechanism was needed locally for families who were at risk and needed to be referred.

·         There was a recording system in place on the number of families the service was working with; information on how many families the service was working with and the number of referrals to Early Years, Gateway etc could be provided.

·         Fewer staff meant reducing activities that were being undertaken and passing on responsibility for certain programmes to other areas. 

·         In terms of hard to reach communities targeted early help had mechanisms in place that signposted people to other services such as Youth Service etc; the role of the team manager was to know the area well and make it work.

·         The service had 40,000 contacts and did 5700 assessments; the Service were aware of how many cases were early help, social work assessments and how many cases were Looked After; figures of the assistance provided to families could be reported next year.

·         In some instances children in domestic abuse cases were removed and placed on child protection; in such cases there was no further role for the Prevention and Early Years Service.

Resolved-

That the report (Document “I”) and progress to date be noted.