CYP Now - Experts call for revamped Troubled Families scheme to focus on poverty

Troubled Families programme succeeded in helping people, although opinion is split on whether lives were ‘turned around’. Experts say new scheme must focus on tackling causes of poverty, domestic abuse and mental ill health.

More than 500,000 families have been supported through the programme with joblessness, mental health issues, antisocial behaviour and truanting. Picture: Adobe Stock/Rafael Ben-Ari

The government's Troubled Families programme has been refreshed under the new name Supporting Families a decade after it was first launched by former Prime Minister David Cameron.

More than £1.5bn has been ploughed into the programme since its creation following the summer 2011 youth riots, with government analysis showing it has supported more than 500,000 families over a decade with issues like generational joblessness, antisocial behaviour and school truanting.

However, the scheme has been dogged by criticism – that the name was stigmatising, the payment-by-results funding model encouraged “gaming” of the system and whether outcomes were sustained once local authority support workers stepped back.

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