Wendy Weal

1
Supporting Parenting and Families
Wendy Weal Families At Risk Division DCSF
2
Effective parenting improves outcomes for
children

• Effective parenting can protect against the risks
  of growing up poor or in a deprived
  neighbourhood, and reduce the likelihood of
  anti-social behaviour and crime
• Impacts on educational attainment are
  particularly well documented
• Parental interest in education is four times more
  important than SES factors in influencing
  attainment at 16
• Parental involvement has a bigger impact on
  attainment at 7 11 than the quality of the
  school even controlling for social class
• Strong rationale for government intervention to
  support those parents who are struggling
• And to challenge parents who are unable or
  unwilling to meet these responsibilities

3
Family can also be a source of risk
Parental drug misuse

• Parental problem drug use associated with
  neglect, poverty, physical or emotional abuse,
  separation and exposure to criminal behaviour
• 2-3 of children have a parent misusing Class A
  drugs

• Alcohol misuse identified as a factor in 50 of
  all child protection cases
• 1.3m children live with parents who misuse
  alcohol

Alcohol misuse

• 25 children witnessing domestic violence have
  serious social and behavioural problems
• Estimates suggest at least 240,000 children
  exposed to DV

Domestic violence

• 63 of boys with convicted fathers go on to be
  convicted themselves
• children of prisoners have 3 times the risk for
  mental health problems or delinquent behaviour
  compared to their peers
• 162,000 children had a parent in prison (2005),
  55 of female offenders have a child under
  16hildr

Parental offending
4
SEU study showed 2 or 140,000 families with
children experiencing 5 or more disadvantages
Percentage of families with children experiencing
5 or more disadvantages
2.2
2.1
2
1.9
2

2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
The consistency of this figure over 2001 to 2004
suggests that improvements such as the reduction
in child poverty may not be reaching such
families

• Basket of indicators of disadvantages includes
• No parent in the family is in work
• Family lives in poor quality or overcrowded
  housing
• No parent has any qualifications
• Mother has mental health problems
• At least one parent has a long-standing limiting
  illness, disability or infirmity
• Family has low income (below 60 median)
• Family cannot afford a number of food and
  clothing items

5
Multiple disadvantage can cast a long shadow
6
Supporting these parents and families is crucial
to many social and government objectives . . .
and there are strong economic arguments....estima
ted costs.... 406 m illion school
exclusion 8.1 billion 16 18 year olds not
being in education, employment or
training 3.4 billion anti social behaviour
60 billion crime 110,000 child in
residential care. 250,000 family with complex
needs/ anti- social behaviour
7
Developing the potential of parenting and family
support to improve child outcomes

• Parenting support programmes can make an enormous
  difference
• Despite this there were
• Problems with supply and availability
• Agencies dont refer
• Or dont refer early enough
• Targeting reach
• Issues about quality of practice
• What are we doing
• Supporting local authorities to develop
  parenting support
• Developing the workforce
• Increasing targeted provision

8
DELIVERING SUPPORT WHEN ITS NEEDED
Increasing needs
Early signs of risk
Parenting Early Intervention Projects -
Increases the availability of parenting
programmes to reach at risk 8-13 year olds
Parenting Experts - Building on the Respect
Parenting Practitioners - One or two in each LA
-A strategic and delivery role dependent on the
priorities within the LA
High needs
Parent Support Advisers - to support parents and
improve behaviour, attainment and attendance -
rolled out across all LAs after a pilot with 20
areas
Universal services
Respect Parenting Practitioners - Parenting
experts in 77 areas - to help parents of
children or young people involved in or at risk
of ASB
Childrens Trust Childrens Centres Extended
Schools Integrated service delivery Systems
reform Workforce development Think Family
15 Family Pathfinders - Multi agency support
plan to address wider needs of the whole family
- Based on FIPs but working with a wider group of
families

• Universal Services, eg
• Families Information Services and general
  provision of information
• Transition information services
• Early learning and childcare

• Family Intervention Projects
• - whole family assessment
• - Assertive key worker
• - challenge support package
• enforcement measures
• Usually ASB trigger

Whole family support
Parenting programmes
9
Significant investment in parenting and family
support

• Providing a ring fenced grant (2009-2011) for all
  authorities to
• Implement Think Family reforms to local
  authority and health service systems and
  services
• Offer Parenting Early Intervention Programmes
  (PEIPs) to help mothers and fathers of children
  (aged 8-13) at risk of poor outcomes improve
  their parenting skills
• Continue to fund Parenting Experts and
  Practitioners in all authorities and
• Set up Youth Crime Family Intervention Projects
  (FIPs) to provide intensive support to families
  in the greatest difficulty.

10
What is think family ?

• a series of changes to LA services and systems
  to
• extend the integration of childrens services
  within Every Child Matters to all services
  working with children, young people adults
• ensure that all services working with vulnerable
  children, young people and adults consider the
  family context and
• Identify families which are at risk and provide
  support at the earliest opportunity
• Meet the full-range of needs within each family
  they are supporting
• Developing services which can respond effectively
  to the most challenging families
• Strengthen the ability of family members to
  provide care and support to each other

11
Improving the response of services and systems
to vulnerable families
Better systems for identifying and engaging
families at risk (those with multiple and complex
problems putting their children at risk of poor
outcomes)
Identification
Whole family assessment
Building on the CAF, which looks at the needs,
strengths and interrelation of problems of the
whole family
Multi agency support plan
Managed by lead workers who case work families,
working directly with them and co-ordinating
other service involvement
Improved information sharing
To enable early identification and interventions
To ensure the full range of evidence based
programmes and interventions to meet family needs
Joined up planning commissioning
Integration between adult and childrens
services
At all levels of local services such as clear
accountability for families through joined-up
governance to and a common vision and agreed
outcomes for families across services as part of
the LAA process.
12
For the most challenging families we need the
Family Intervention Project model

• A new approach to the most challenging families
  
• A dedicated key worker with low caseloads
• Taking a whole family perspective to assessment
  and the development of support packages
• They gain the agreement of the family to a range
  of behavioural changes and engagement in
  interventions.
• Use of a contract
• Persistent and assertive working method
• Effective multi agency arrangements

13
The Youth Crime Action Plan recognised the
effectiveness of FIPs in preventing youth crime
and delivering a whole range of outcomes
We need to focus on the one in twenty young
people who commit half of all youth crime. These
are the families whose children are disrupting
the classrooms, or worse, roaming the streets
committing crime. We will expand successful
family interventions to an estimated 20,000
families, increase support for those who need it,
but in return, tough sanctions, including
eviction, if they do not respond. 15 July 2008

• ASB FIPS
• Child poverty FIPs tackling child poverty and
  inter generational worklessness
• Youth Crime FIPs to prevent offending
• YCAP funding to put a FIP in every LA as part of
  efforts to tackle Youth Crime

Number of Family Intervention Projects 2006-11
14
Where do we need to get to?
A integrated and appropriate service response to
all families at risk

• Joined up FIP type provision sufficient to meet
  the needs of the most extreme families (whatever
  their combinations of problems)

High
Medium

• Wider availability of evidence based parenting
  programmes to support families when risks emerge
  

Low

• Early parenting and family support e.g websites,
  helplines delivered through universal services

• Underpinning all this Changes in attitudes,
  culture and behaviour at local level and on the
  front line (achieved by Think Family, workforce
  reform and Children's Trusts) to identify and
  intervene early with all families at risk