Help volunteers support families

Increasing numbers of children are being referred for statutory support and protection. This is driving spending towards highly skilled, resource-intensive professional interventions and away from the types of help and advice services at community level that are often delivered with and through local volunteers. This is unwelcome on several fronts, as local authorities well know. Not only does it erode prevention, but it can make it more difficult to make safe and sustainable progress with families that are "stuck" in ambivalent or even hostile relationships with professional services. Volunteer mentor programmes that work alongside families on child protection or child in need plans are one way in which local authorities can deliver robustly on their duties to children at risk by drawing on the strengths and capabilities of their communities. Volunteer mentors can act as bridges back into normal community life for families whose circumstances have often isolated them, and for whom professional interventions can add to their impression of being singled out or at fault.