The launch in June of Foundations, the national What Works Centre for Children and Families, marked the start of what its chief executive Jo Casebourne describes as “a new vision, mission and strategy through which we will support vulnerable children”.
Foundations brings together the Early Intervention Foundation (EIF) and What Works for Children's Social Care after the two organisations merged following a recommendation in the final report from the Independent Review of Children's Social Care, which was chaired by Josh MacAlister, executive chair of Foundations.
A report, Building the Foundations, published to coincide with the new organisation's official launch, sets out plans to identify new approaches to early intervention and children's social care while developing interventions that can be evaluated for their impact.
“Foundations will generate and champion actionable evidence to improve services and interventions that support family relationships, so that more vulnerable children can go on to flourish,” the report states.
The emphasis on family support – both in the organisation's name and strategic plan – has pleased early intervention advocates, such as EIF founder Graham Allen (see below).
Foundations has set out plans to increase demand for evidence about what works to improve family relationships through the implementation and assessment of early intervention programmes at both local and national levels.
Casebourne, the former EIF chief, says: “We believe that concentrating our efforts on foundational relationships is where we can add most value.
“We will also be looking to identify the most effective early interventions across all our priority areas: we know that the earlier we make the right interventions, the fewer families could reach crisis.
“We want to see a society that understands and supports the critical role that family and other close relationships play in a child's development, health and wellbeing.”
For Jonathan Stanley, director at the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care, it is important for Foundations to prioritise a “culture of enquiry”.
“Being curious is an essential element in social work/care practice,” he says. “It is essential Foundations promotes the sustaining of this in its strategy document. Currently it is a notable gap.”
‘A CHAMPION OF EARLY INTERVENTION’
By Graham Allen, founder, the Early Intervention Foundation
Those behind the merger have done a good job of pulling the two organisations together and I welcome the emphasis on early intervention. Early intervention has always been about taking preventative action and I will be keeping an eye on Foundations to ensure that philosophy continues.
The new body has an important role in delivering the ambitions of the government's Care Review reforms and having Josh MacAlister as its chair should help with that.
Foundations can also champion the need for continuous and sustainable funding for early intervention so that we see cultural change as well as the practical changes envisaged. Only by doing that can we stop spending billions of pounds on the consequences of not intervening early.
This requires the government to get serious about how it funds investment in children's social care to shift the emphasis from reactive to preventative. This is something Foundations can take the lead in and help make the case for devolving responsibility and funding – we need to allow local authorities, cities and regions to keep hold of savings from preventative approaches and reinvest them into more early interventions.
‘CONTINUE TO CHALLENGE ORTHODOXY’
By Alan Wood, former chair, What Works for Children's Social Care
The creation of Foundations offers the opportunity to further drive the challenge of improving outcomes for children and making a powerful case for investing in early help for children and families. It will need to be bold to help overcome long, stubborn and entrenched challenges facing the sector. It must quickly establish its relevance and impact.
What Works for Children's Social Care was established to break the mould on research and evaluation in children's services and to learn “what works”. The introduction of randomised controlled trials, the creation of the evidence store, the Practice In Need of Evidence approach and the building of strong partnerships with local authorities and universities began the process of change.
The centre spoke truth to power when it found limited evidence of the effectiveness of the highly popular Signs of Safety practice model, and that much-hyped Predictive Analytics approaches performed no better than chance.
The approach of “challenging the orthodoxy” needs to continue. It will need to demonstrate how its work will support and guide social workers, other professionals and local authorities in continuing to improve their services to children and families.
