Troubled Families programme: lessons from the first year

A year on from its launch, the government's ambitious initiative to turn around the lives of 120,000 of England's most troubled families is starting to bear fruit.

Figures released earlier this month show that councils have identified 66,470 families - more than half of the total 118,082 families they were tasked with "turning around" by April 2015.

However, the statistics also reveal that, across England as a whole, authorities failed to hit the target on the number of families they agreed to actually work with during the same period. In total, work with 35,618 families was begun between April 2012 and March 2013 - 14.9 per cent less than the 41,835 target for the first year of the three-year programme.
 
Furthermore, across England, only 1,675 - or 1.42 per cent - of the targeted 118,082 families have been "turned around" so far.

Considering the intensive work required to effect long-term change in families with often multiple complex and entrenched problems, it is perhaps not surprising that councils are yet to successfully transform a large number of lives.

But the local level data shows that some authorities are leading the way in terms of the numbers of families they are working with, and have successfully helped (see table).

Leeds
Among the current top performers is Leeds, where 135 families - the highest of any authority - had been "turned around" by January this year. The authority has identified 876, or 40 per cent, of its allocated 2,190 families, and has so far worked with 669 of them, or 30.6 per cent of the total.

Jim Hopkinson, head of targeted services at Leeds City Council, says one of the reasons for the authority's good initial performance is that it started from a strong position - the authority already offered intensive family support, family intervention, and multi-systemic therapy (MST) programmes before the troubled families initiative began.

"When we got the troubled families funding, we moved very quickly to enhance our intensive family support capacity - buying an extra 150 places on our MST and family intervention projects so we can work with up to 650 families at any one time," he says.

Hopkinson says the main challenge now is "getting the right families to the right services in speedy time". To do this, rather than co-ordinating the approach across the entire authority area, an existing system where the authority is broken down into 25 "cluster" areas based on the city's extended schools system, is being utilised. He describes each cluster as a "mini children's trust", with areas having a designated targeted services leader (TSL) who acts as a "mini troubled families co-ordinator" in addition to their regular job.

Hopkinson says this made the task of identifying and working with families far more manageable. The job of the TSL is to then decide which agency should provide the lead practitioner for the family, who will sometimes have had several agencies, such as substance misuse services, or youth offending services, working with them in the past.

Of those families worked with in the first year, the lead practitioner came from social services in 140 cases, the youth offending service in 125, probation in 80, Connexions in 60, the police in 20, and around six from schools and voluntary organisations.

Hopkinson adds that an essential element of the success of the programme in the city is overseeing workforce development.

"If we want lead practitioners to do a good job, we need to make sure they have the skill set to go out and engage, support and challenge," he says.

"Having the confidence that these staff have a skill set is an important element of our work, so we have invested quite heavily in a training programme giving Working with Parents Level 3 and 4 qualifications, and training programmes for lead professionals on family intervention.

"We have also put a lot of investment in assertive engagement skills and restorative engagement and are planning on putting on summer schools, including modules on domestic violence, substance misuse and parental mental health."

Newcastle
In Newcastle, the overwhelming majority (95.8 per cent) of the target number of 1,010 families have been identified, and 51.8 per cent (523) are being worked with. Of these, 132 - or 13.1 per cent - have been successfully transformed.

Jayne Moules, troubled families co-ordinator at the authority, says that, like Leeds, Newcastle has benefited from investment in family intervention work over recent years. But she adds that persistence and inventiveness have also paid off. "It is about tenacity and encouragement, and getting alongside the family in quite an upfront way, building trust over a period of time," she says.

Moules highlights attendance at school as a major issue - a problem that family workers have had to think creatively about. "We know we have challenges in that respect," she says. "At every secondary and primary school, attendance is a real priority.

"In primary school, we recognise it is perhaps not the children, it's about how you support families to enable children to attend school.

"In secondary school, it is about having a lot of alternative choices for children who find mainstream school difficult. Schools are thinking about what they can do to make themselves attractive."

This can include giving a young person a personalised timetable or alternative provision schools providing outreach services in venues that engage young people, such as community centres that are not regarded in the same way as a school establishment. Other professionals are also being drafted in, including youth offending team staff and family support workers in the classroom.

Essex
In Essex, troubled families co-ordinator Lise Bird says the target of 2,200 will be a struggle to meet. Although the authority is engaged in innovative ways of working with families, she admits that identifying troubled families is proving difficult. So far, the authority has identified 480 of the target 2,220 (21.6 per cent).

"The sheer numbers are a huge challenge for us," she says. "And some schools are no longer required to contribute to Essex County Council data systems because they are academies.

"There is an attendance system that about 65 per cent of Essex schools contribute to, but we haven't been able to access data from the other third."

A provider's view
David Holmes, chief executive of Family Action, which delivers services as part of the troubled families programme across a number of councils, says local authorities are in "very different positions".

"It doesn't surprise me that in terms of families being turned around, the figures are very low," he says. "That is because of the amount of time it takes to actually work with a family with entrenched difficulties.

"These are families who, in our experience, have multiple and complex needs. There may be one particular issue they are presenting with, but there may actually be a range of issues impacting on that family. It is only when you work through those issues that you can help the family."

He is also keen that the programme is extended. "I am concerned that the funding is limited to this parliament," he says. "Given the importance of the work, it would be good to see a commitment to continue funding into the next parliament. It makes good economic sense to do more preventative work."