Oxfordshire’s collaborative model for sustainable change in families

Helping parents with their vulnerabilities in a kind and motivating way that builds sustained change in families was the major factor behind the implementation of a new model of safeguarding practice in Oxfordshire in recent years.

Family Solutions Plus

The Family Solutions Plus (FSP) model is one of the three government-recommended models being funded through the Strengthening Families Safeguarding Children programme which aims to safely reduce children entering care. It puts at its heart a consistent relationship between a social worker and a family, working together through assessment and intervention employing a motivational approach.

It involves placing adult mental health, substance misuse and domestic abuse workers in teams with children’s social workers, working to a whole-family plan. These teams work with families to tackle parental vulnerabilities; and support children to remain with their families. They work in the community alongside early help teams, enabling a continuum of support through step-up and step-down, giving families the best chance of sustaining long-term changes.

We have merged our children’s and families’ assessment teams and statutory child in need/child protection teams to create the new model.

FSP was designed collaboratively by our social care workers and families. We were determined not to take a top-down approach – it was about listening, understanding what happens in the real world, and discussing on-the-ground experiences.

FSP is about everyone taking responsibility: social workers, families, and young people. I see it as a partnership. Only through listening, engaging and attempting to understand do we build trust with children, families and among professionals with different skills and perspectives.

Core social care practice was developed using a workshop approach. Operational managers collaborated with social work teams to review practice and identify the key elements of what works. Public health colleagues funded a frontline pilot project in which experienced substance misuse workers experimented alongside social care staff undertaking joint duty work, assessment and plans.

Our partnership with Cherwell District Council included an innovative trial to tackle the causes and consequences of family-homelessness. Managers worked up their approaches to group supervision, whole family recording and the service’s performance framework.

Key lessons

We will continue listening, learning and fine-tuning. Oxford University is undertaking independent evaluation. A series of conversations with staff offered an opportunity to assess the effectiveness of FSP in Oxfordshire, from the practitioner’s point of view.

Main themes to emerge included:

• The comprehensive training and staff workshops resulted in a strong belief and commitment to the new model and its values.
• There is appreciation for the adult-facing practitioners and the work they are doing to help parents and carers.
• The collaborative approach to engaging with families also seems to be reaping benefits. Oxford University found that motivational interviewing techniques – such as understanding the cycle of change – leads to a deeper understanding of parents and enables trust and confidence to develop.
• Integrating assessment and intervention functions is leading to more consistent and realistic plans and cutting delays during the transfer of cases between different teams – a problem with the previous social care model.

FSP has faced unprecedented challenges in its infancy. Social workers have struggled in balancing higher workloads than we predicted, especially with the rise in court work caused by delays in the legal process. But Oxford University’s research tell us that FSP has meant we are better placed to continue assisting families and young people than we would have been with the previous fragmented model. We are already seeing fewer entries to care and fewer new/repeat child protection plans.