Call for better co-ordinated support for disadvantaged families
Laura McCardle
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Support services need to be better co-ordinated in order to ensure government programmes to ‘turn around' the lives of struggling families reach their full potential, the chief executive of 4Children has said.
Anne Longfield believes the Troubled Families programme suffers from a “lack of co-ordination and patchy delivery”, which she says varies between local authorities, and that children’s centres could play a vital role in delivering the scheme.
Her comments follow the publication of the a report from National Audit Office which reviews the progress of the Troubled Families scheme and the Families with Multiple Problems programme.
The report finds that while both programmes are starting to impact on areas such as unemployment and antisocial behaviour, key elements of performance needs to improve if they are to meet the targets set by the government.
It blames a lack of co-ordination between the two departments during the designing and implementation stages of the two programmes, which the report concludes have “considerable overlap”.
In response to the findings, Longfield said: “In order to be successful, it will be crucial for services and professionals in areas such as health, housing, social services and Jobcentre Plus to get behind the programme and work together in order to identify those families that require help, share data about their needs and provide support in a joined-up way.
“The government also needs to lead the way for local authorities by ensuring that sufficient resources are available to enable them to realise the full benefits of the programme’s preventative approach.”
4Children’s annual Children’s Centres Census, published last month, found that 49 per cent of children’s centres were not involved with the delivery of the Trouble Families programme, despite already working with two-thirds of the country’s most disadvantaged families, meaning they are "not getting the joined-up help they need" said Longfield.
The Troubled Families scheme was launched by the Department for Communities and Local Government in April last year with the aim of turning around the lives of 120,000 disadvantaged families by May 2015.
The Department for Work and Pensions introduced the Families with Multiple Problems programme in January last year with the aim of finding employment for 22 per cent of individuals attached to the initiative by March 2015.