The Government has announced the local authorities that will test two new children’s social care programmes, which aim to support families through early help and reduce the need for crisis response.
The Department for Education (DfE) said Dorset, Lincolnshire and Wolverhampton would begin the rollout of the families first for children (FFC) pathfinder programme, setting out how to ensure early help for families facing problems like addiction, domestic abuse or poor mental health.
The DfE said the FFC programme would help these families stay together when possible while intervening to protect vulnerable children when necessary.
An additional seven local authorities – Brighton and Hove, Sunderland, Gateshead, Telford and Wrekin, Staffordshire, Hartlepool and Hammersmith and Fulham – have been chosen to deliver family network pilots (FNPs).
The FNPs aim to find ‘transformative ways to involve wider family members’ in supporting parents so that children can stay in their family homes.
The two programmes, funded by £45m collectively, are part of the Government’s children’s social care strategy, ‘Stable homes, built on love’.
The strategy was developed in response to recommendations made in the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care.
The Local Government Association (LGA) said it was concerned that funding for children’s social care reform was ‘significantly lower’ than the review recommended.
Cllr Louise Gittins, chair of the LGA’s children and young people’s board, said the funding would ‘largely benefit only the small number of areas taking part in pathfinders’. She called for ‘significant additional funding’ for all councils.
The president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services, John Pearce, said the launch of the two programmes was a ‘positive step’.
Mr Pearce added: ‘During this period of pathfinding and piloting it is crucial that real-time progress and learning is shared with the sector to help other local authorities implement the reforms in the future.’
For more on this topic, check out the following feature from The MJ (£), 'Standing up for the vulnerable'.
