Family help will work for generations
Ravi Chandiramani
Monday, March 1, 2010
Our main feature this week focuses on how Family Intervention Projects (FIPs) are turning many lives around. FIPs are in vogue. The Prime Minister pledged to extend them to 50,000 of the most chaotic families last autumn. And there is a rich seam of evidence now emerging that FIPs work. The latest evaluations suggest that two-thirds of families are no longer involved in antisocial behaviour as a result.
FIPs are expensive, costing up to £20,000 per family. But when you consider that a very small number of families tend to soak up the lion's share of social care spending in each local authority, the costs of other interventions will be many times that amount.
Most FIPs are working because they are modelled effectively. Dealing with the family as a whole rather than a vulnerable individual in isolation is coherent and efficient. It's an approach that gets to the root of many social problems - such as mental health, substance misuse, school exclusion or criminal activity - much faster. Families have a key worker to build trust and ensure support is co-ordinated, and each of these works only with a small number of families for up to two years. The impact of FIPs after they have finished is less certain but the government is now monitoring families nine to 14 months after they leave the project.
Despite a body of solid evidence, government funding to support and sustain FIPs runs only until 2011. The Conservatives support them in principle but, surprise surprise, have yet to indicate whether they would fund them in government.
They are especially keen on Tory-run Westminster Council's own Family Recovery Programme — to all intents and purposes a FIP with different name. They are also keen on working with whole families to break the cycle of intergenerational worklessness under the stewardship of welfare adviser Lord David Freud and Debbie Scott, the founder of charity Tomorrow's People, who is also to be made a Tory peer.
The branding of these projects is irrelevant. But it is crucial that we continue to invest in programmes that work with whole families, and that this goes beyond just rhetoric. They need moral and political will at local level.
Money might be tight but FIPs work because they work wholeheartedly with whole families. They won't deliver if they cut corners. They should be delivered properly or not at all.
Ravi Chandiramani, editor, Children & Young People Now
