Families with Multiple
Problems
Wendy Weal
Families at Risk Division
‘new approach’ - national context . .
Government Commitment:
• Coalition agreement to ‘investigate a new approach to
helping families with multiple problems’ focusing on 5060,000 ‘high need’ families
Government Priorities:
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Big Society: empowering local services and communities to meet local need
Strip away obstacles that prevent disadvantaged children from succeeding
Building capacity and resilience within families and communities
Safeguard children at risk
Providing value for money services that are cost effective
‘new approach’ - national context . .
Key Challenges:
• Building on existing projects (family intervention, family pathfinders, family
recovery project etc..) but improving access to specialist help and staff
skills, links to other local services and to voluntary and community services,
more sustainable funding and sharing good practice more widely
Approaches:
• DfE/ADCS cost-effective children’s services project – focus on family
intervention to reduce entrants into the care system
• Localism: ‘sector led’ sharing of best practice, information, research & data
• Big Society: greater involvement of volunteers, non-state delivery models
Policy Links:
• Child Poverty Strategy, DWP social justice, Frank Field, No 10 Children and
Families Taskforce, Munro Social Work Review, Family Law Review,
Spending Review.
The Case: parental disadvantage severely
limits a child’s opportunities to succeed . . .
Poverty, unemployment, parenting alone, having a large family, poor or overcrowded housing, having a
difficult child, parental illness and substance misuse, can have a negative impact on parenting - the
factors are linked and mutually reinforcing (Ghate & Hazel, 2002).
142,000 families experience multiple and intergenerational deprivation and the children in 56,000 of these
families also display serious ‘problem’ behaviours (Analysis of FACS - SETF 2008)
Young Carers often don’t know they are a
carer – and may not be receiving support
Treatment Agency
estimate 120,000
children living with adult
drug users in treatment
40% young carers have
difficulties at school where
parent has
alcohol problem
2001 Census estimated
22,000 young carers
caring
between 20-50 hrs a week
450,000 parents
estimated to have
mental health problems
Around 1.3m children
live with parents
who misuse alcohol.
Traditional model of support for young carers –
supported in isolation – returns to same caring role
1. Young Carer struggling
at school
2. Referral to Targeted
Support / Respite
3. Break, counselling and
support
4. Young Carer refreshed
but returns to caring
5. Difficulties re-emerge
6. More targeted support
7. Return back to caring
role
Cost to society of not working together
can be high
Learning the Lessons from Serious Case Reviews
• “The enmeshed interaction between overwhelmed families and
overwhelmed professionals contributed to the child being lost or
unseen”
• Safeguarding is everyone’s business and we must all do more to
spot the signs and intervene early
• In approx 75% Serious Case Reviews parental mental ill
health/substance misuse/domestic violence a factor
• S 17 Children’s Act 1989 - LA duty to safeguard young people
Whole family approach – family supported – young
person lifted out of inappropriate caring role
1. Needs recognised
2. Needs assessed
3. Needs identified
4. Triggers for
problems
addressed
5. Family supported
and young carer
protected
6. Family support
needs kept under
review
Refreshed Carers Strategy
Ministers agree that the vision of current Carers Strategy holds good:
• Vision: ‘carers will be universally recognised and valued as being
fundamental to strong families and stable communities. Support will be
tailored to meet individuals’ needs, enabling carers to maintain a balance
between their caring responsibilities and a life outside caring, while
enabling the person they support to be a full and equal citizen’
• Vision for young carers: ‘children and young people will be protected from
inappropriate caring and have the support they need to learn, develop and
thrive, to enjoy positive childhoods’
‘call for evidence’:
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The ‘call for evidence’ closed on 20 Sept
Asks what has worked well in improving carers’ lives
Will be used to help inform Spending Review discussions
Refreshed Carers Strategy and action plan setting out the priorities for the
period 2011/15 to be produced at the end of the year
• emerging themes - early identification of young carers through schools and
in a range of adults services, personalisation of support, whole family
approach, supporting young adult carers into employment and how to
access services
Ministers have urged Adults and Children’s Services to
work together to support young carers
– Lack of joint working between adult’s and children’s services is a factor
in the problems experienced by young carers
– ADASS and ADCS published a Memorandum of Understanding on
‘working together to better support young carers’
– Encourages adult and children’s services to work closely together to
improve support to young carers and their families
– Aims to ensure that no package of care relies on a young person having
to take on inappropriate or excessive levels of care
– ADASS/ADCS intend to audit LAs in the autumn to find out what action
has resulted from the MoU
A number of areas developing innovative
practice
Aims:
• Children’s and adult services and voluntary sector to work
together in a more co-ordinated and effective way
• Identify and provide support for young carers and their families
Objectives:
• Reduce young person’s caring role
• Improve young person’s physical and emotional health
• Improve young person’s school attendance and attainment
• Support the whole family
17 areas receiving funding until March 2011 through the de ring-fenced
Think Family Grant
Evaluation of innovative practice – York
Consulting
Key findings
•
Strong focus on ‘hidden’ carers and raising awareness
•
Majority of referrals due to adult mental health concerns (50%) and adult
drug misuse (33%)
•
Wider risks were identified such as violence in the home/boundary setting
and emotional health
•
Team Around the Family/Lead Professionals coordinating integrated
packages of support
•
Improved access to wider support; parenting programmes & family group
conferencing
Publications:
•
Evaluation reports on whole family approach and young carers to be
published at the end of 2010
Healthy Schools
Young carers want their schools and teachers to be more supportive
•
A recent joint Princess Royal Trust for Carers/Children’s Society survey
highlighted:
– 68% of young carers reported being bullied at school
– 39% of young carers said that not a single teacher at their school knew they were a
young carer and, of those where the school did know, 52% still did not feel supported
– 40% of young carers have difficulties at school where parent has alcohol problem
In response:
– The Princess Royal Trust for Carers and The Children’s Society has produced a
schools pack
– An increasing numbers of schools have included young carers as a key theme within
their own ‘Healthy Schools’ programmes
– DfE and DH working with the National Young Carers Coalition as part of Healthy
Schools approach to develop a young carers e-learning module for school staff –
plans to make available later in the year
£1m Innovation Fund
Innovation Fund
• 20 voluntary sector projects funded until March 2011 to extend the
support they provide to young carers to the whole family
• Princess Royal Trust for Carers managing the fund on behalf of
National Young Carers Coalition
• 1457 young carers and their families will benefit
Projects are:
• Developing family support role to work with the family in a more
intensive way
• Working more proactively and effectively with local authority services
• Providing early preventative support
• Developing family advocacy services for young carers
• Providing family group conferencing to develop support plans
• Providing 'out of hours' services
Strong evidence to support family intervention
and whole family ways of working
NatCen research based on 1013 families who have exited the intervention (March 2010)
Domestic Violence - 61%
reduction
Risk factors at point of
referral
23
9
Child Protection – 42% reduction
Risk factors at point of
exit
24
14
Relationship breakdown
“Results show that the outcomes
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11
for families ending the
Drug/substance misuse – 45%
reduction
Drinking problem/alcoholism 53% reduction
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planned exit, compared with their
situation at the beginning of the
30
14
project are overwhelmingly
39
Mental health problem – 26%
reduction
Truancy, exclusion and bad
behaviour at school – 58%
reduction
intervention with a formal
33
29
positive across a wide range of
measures” (Natcen 2009)
57
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