Supporting Families gets major revamp

Last year, the government’s flagship programme to support struggling families was given a rebrand and new three-year funding package worth more than £200m annually. Changing the programme name from Troubled Families to Supporting Families was welcomed by children’s sector leaders for shifting the focus from social problems to the early help services delivered by councils through the scheme.

However, the development of a new outcomes framework that broadens the scope of the programme and recommendations in the recently published Care Review final report for greater government spending on early help has raised questions as to whether there is sufficient funding to deliver on the ambitions.

Outcomes framework

Unemployment, poor school attendance, mental and physical health problems, involvement in crime and antisocial behaviour, domestic abuse and children in need of help and protection are just some of the complex problems that the Supporting Families programme aims to address. In April, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), which oversees the programme, announced an expansion of the outcome measures from six to 10 (see box).

According to the DLUHC, expanding the outcome measures not only signals that they are priority areas but enables local authorities to gather better data on the problems facing families.

The aim of the new outcomes is to “avoid some of the poorest outcomes for families” such as family breakdown, involvement in the criminal justice system and homelessness, the 2021/22 annual report states. The new outcomes will also give a “sharper focus” on the key risk and protective factors for children becoming looked after, according to DLUHC.

Stephanie Waddell, assistant director of the Early Intervention Foundation (EIF), which was involved in developing the outcomes framework, says increasing the headline outcomes from six to 10 from October “reflects the complexity of families’ lives and the wide-ranging support provided by local authorities and their partners”.

Waddell says the updated framework represents “a step in the right direction” in creating a system that “captures actual change for children or families rather than solely rely on process or practitioner perspectives”.

“The changes were based on an extensive engagement and re-drafting period with local authorities, other government departments and the EIF,” she explains.

The new funding announced in last November’s Spending Review will help councils reach up to 300,000 more families and takes the total planned investment over the next three years to £695m, according to the DLUHC.

One of its key objectives is to prevent high-cost statutory interventions such as children going into care. Research on the Troubled Families scheme found it reduced the number of children taken into care by a third between 2015 and 2018; the proportion of adults going to prison by a quarter; and the proportion of young people going to prison by 38 per cent.

In addition, 80 per cent of families worked with by councils through the scheme last year achieved successful outcomes taking the total number of families to be turned around to 470,000 since 2012.

Despite these successes, a Freedom of Information request by Action for Children found that nearly 65,000 children a year that miss out on early help services are being re-referred to children’s social care within 12 months. It also highlighted how nine out of 10 local authorities cut early intervention spending between 2015 and 2020.

The findings point to why children’s services experts are calling for more support for families in contact with social care services.

Waddell says that it’s important that the new investment reaches more of the children and families with the most complex needs, “including those who may have had a child identified as a child in need”.

She adds: “The Supporting Families programme can play a critical role in providing broader whole-family support for families who may already have children’s social care involvement.”

The EIF believes that the programme could have an even greater impact if there was central investment in training and professional development for key workers and there was a commitment to evaluating, piloting and trialling new interventions with families with the most complex needs.

Strict criteria

Despite the increase in outcomes measures under the revamped programme, Iryna Pona, policy manager at The Children’s Society, is concerned that many families who need help will not qualify for it under the scheme’s eligibility criteria.

“We have concerns about the strict criteria on which the families will be selected and the limited funding for the programme mean it will not reach all the families and children who need help,” she adds.

Local government leaders say that although the Supporting Families approach it is one of the “few sources of funding” which enables a local, preventative, integrated approach, they would like to see it adequately resourced and back the Care Review’s recommendation for more funding for early help.

However, with social care budgets under pressure due to rising demand from the pandemic, the need for more government funding for early help is acute, according to children’s services leaders.

Steve Crocker, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, says: “The Spending Review gave us greater clarity around this vital line of funding which forms part of our preventative offer to local communities…but we need a greater national focus on working with children and families who are at risk of poor outcomes at the earliest possible stage. This requires adequate long-term national investment to allow us to provide this vital support where it is needed.”

OUTCOME MEASURES

The updated 10 outcomes, which come into effect from 3 October 2022:

• Getting a good education

• Good early years development

• Improved mental and physical health

• Promoting recovery and reducing substance abuse

• Improved family relationships

• Protecting children from abuse and exploitation

• Preventing crime

• Protecting families from domestic abuse

• Achieving secure housing

• Achieving financial stability

Source: Supporting Families programme guidance 2022-25, DLUHC, April 2022

FURTHER READING

• Supporting Families programme guidance 2022-25, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, April 2022

• Early Help System Guide, DLUHC, March 2022

• Supporting Families annual report 2021/22, DLUHC, March 2022