Families Together
Leading the Journey of Change for Families
A truly inspiring approach to integrating
services across Cheshire West and Chester.
Steve Robinson, Chief Executive,
Cheshire West and Chester Council
Introduction
2012 saw Cheshire West and Chester Council and partners embark on a journey to
transform services for families by developing and introducing an innovative and
ambitious approach to service redesign and delivery through a programme called
‘Families Together’. Families Together is a key strand of the Altogether Better
Whole Place Community Budgets proposition in West Cheshire and provides a unique
opportunity to work together, transform the lives of families, and reduce dependency
on services in the Borough.
As we embark on the next stage of our journey, it is important to mark the first year
of delivery by outlining the key achievements over the last 12 months, including
outcomes as a result of working with our Year 1 cohort of 176 families. We would
also like to thank our partners and colleagues for their support, contributions
and opportunities created through partnership working to shape and develop the
foundations of truly integrated services, underpinned by improved co-ordination and
early intervention services.
The Families Together team have been able to engage with families
who we have identified as significantly hard to engage and are now making
real inroads into building relationships and working with these families to
bring about behavioural change.
Superintendent Nicholas Bailey, Western Area Command, Cheshire Constabulary
You asked…
In developing our new approach partners asked
for the following:
5. A robust workforce development
1. A clear and robust Governance Structure for
Families Together
2. A positive brand synonymous with working
with families
3. A new delivery model that enables more
effective work with families and reduces
multiple interventions
4. A new role as the facilitator of the coordination of support and behavioural
change
programme for Family Advocates
6. A Families Together toolkit for colleagues
working with families
7. An evidence led, commissioned menu of
interventions for working with families
8. A programme of proactive engagement of
families to drive change in behaviours
9. An evaluative approach that will shape and
inform future commissioning and service
redesign
Families Together did…
Families Together have come a long way in
delivering the vision of the programme and
shaping support to families:
1. Delivered a partnership
governance structure
Families Together have established a
governance structure that provides a robust
framework for:
•
The delivery of Families Together
priorities
•
Alignment with the Altogether Better
Community Budgets programme and
the Children’s Trust Board
•
A vehicle to progress the aims and
objectives of the programme
A recent internal audit highlighted the
governance structure as “fully embracing audit,
performance and risk management, providing
a clear vision, well designed delivery model,
programme documentation and a functional
toolkit for working with families”.
3. Created a new delivery
model to work with
families
Improving outcomes for families with a range
of complex needs is a genuine people and place
based interconnected challenge that requires
co-ordination and input from a wide range of
public services to truly get to grips with it. The
Families Together delivery model has been
designed, to reduce fragmentation, duplication
and cost to agencies working with families and
provides a holistic view of the family unit and
issues, with a focus on improving outcomes
whilst building family resilience and confidence.
The ‘Family Advocate’ role co-ordinates support
for families with a range of agencies, acting
as their single point of contact supporting and
challenging where appropriate, utilising a family
agreement and the ‘Team Around the Family’
approach, which we have been instrumental
in supporting as it has been rolled out across
Cheshire West and Chester. The family
agreement and development of a discretionary
budget linked to the family action plan has
been specifically designed to ensure ‘buy in’ and
commitment to achieving outcomes and positive
solutions for both families and agencies working
on their behalf. The Families Together delivery
2.Developed an inclusive
partnership brand –
Families Together
model has been instrumental in informing the
design principles of the Integrated Early Support
Model.
Transforming Support for Families
35%
Developing a unique, positive brand that inspires
and enables partnership working and engaging
with families was really important. The brand
was developed in consultation with a range
of partners and families we currently work
with to truly represent working together and
putting families at the forefront of what we
do. Families Together is synonymous with this.
The brand is now recognised with families and
partners for the positive work with families.
of year 1 families have achieved
outcomes in relation to reduced
risks to children; housing
stability; neighbour nuisance;
physical and mental health and
moving closer to work.
Source: Data and Analysis of Live Case Management
Families Together has created a real opportunity for Cheshire Fire
and Rescue Service to work in true partnership to tackle place based issues
that affect our communities.
Nick Evans, Community Safety, Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service
4.Pioneered the role of the
Family Advocate
The Family Advocate role was developed
through consultation and engagement with key
partners, families and national good practice to
ensure the role reflects the values, attitudes and
behaviours and tenacity required to co-ordinate
support for families through a combination of
‘GRIP’ and ‘SUPPORT’.
A fully resourced team of 12 Family Advocates
(based in localities) are now working with
families across Cheshire West and Chester. This
includes the welcome addition of two secondee’s
from Cheshire Fire Service, a key member of
the Families Together Steering Group - the
first of such partner secondments in the
Region, enabling much quicker organisation
and agreement of future secondments as part
of Altogether Better following the template
agreed by Families Together and HR colleagues.
Cheshire Fire Service has since extended the offer
to Cheshire East, Warrington and Halton.
The Family Advocates and delivery of Families
Together will be a fantastic enhancement of the
emerging Integrated Early Support model and
the Integrated Case Management Teams in the
Autumn.
5. Produced a robust
Workforce Development
Programme
Partners have been integral to the development
and delivery of a programme of activity designed
to provide the Family Advocates with a
comprehensive knowledge of key agencies and
partners, their interventions and way of working,
including:
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Team Around the Family
Financial Inclusion
Fraud & Risk Awareness
Probation Services
Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service
Housing Associations
Customer First
Child Mental Health and CAMHS services
ASB
YOS
Employee Skills and Learning
Police
Domestic Violence
Adult Social Care
Health
Safeguarding
JCP
The Family Advocates have also recently
undertaken an intensive Open College Network
accredited programme for Supporting Families
with Complex Needs recommended by the
Troubled Families Unit. To further support the
enhancement of the emerging Integrated Early
Support model this training was extended to
all our partners with colleagues from Cheshire’s
Crime and Community Safety Team, Plus Dane
and Weaver Vale Housing Associations and
Stockport Council recently attending this
programme. Families Together would like to
commend and congratulate all colleagues, as
they will shortly receive their accreditation.
6.Developed the Families
Together Toolkit
7. Compiled an evidence led
Menu of Interventions
The Families Together Toolkit has been
developed to facilitate working with families,
building on both local and national good
practice and is designed to enhance the ‘Team
Around the Family’ approach being used across
Cheshire West and Chester when working with
families and children. Families Together have
also developed a Family Agreement that requires
sign up and commitment from all services/
agencies involved as well as each individual
A key aim of the Families Together Programme
was to develop a menu of evidence based
service interventions for use when working
with families to ensure that the right mix of
interventions will work in a much more coordinated way to help improve outcomes
for families. This will also aim to prevent the
escalation of problems and reduce the need for
crisis or acute interventions. Pulling this menu of
interventions into one place has initially helped
us to develop a ‘toolkit’ of support and action
family member. This enables the Family
Advocate to co-ordinate the right services for
the family and provides them with the authority
to prioritise co-ordinated support in line with
a families’ needs and identify and utilise any
available sanctions to support progression of
the plan towards sustainable outcomes for the
family.
This combined Toolkit will ensure best practice
is used at all times when working with families
whilst ensuring a co-ordinated consistent
approach to engagement is provided by their
dedicated Family Advocate. Such best practice
will transfer into the emerging Integrated Early
Support Model.
that families and Family Advocates can draw
on. It is also enabling providers of services to
engage more effectively with Families Together,
be clear about their role and further enhance
relationships they have with other services
working with families.
In the medium to longer term, the menu of
interventions will continue be developed as a
result of learning from delivery, so that what is
commissioned is increasingly based on evidence
of ‘what works’, local intelligence, utilising local
resources where possible, ensures best value for
money and is ultimately targeted towards the
needs of families and increasingly focused on
preventions and early intervention.
The Family Advocates were highly engaged and embraced every
aspect of the training provided. The portfolios that have been submitted are
a reflection of the dedication and motivation of this highly skilled team.
Sue Rastall, Gill Strachan Associates Ltd
91%
of year 1 families engaged
Source: Data and Analysis of Live Case Management
8. Identified and engaged
with Families in a
respectful, positive way
Many of the families identified for Families
Together are known to several agencies.
Partners were integral to the identification
of families to ensure we are working with
the families most in need of support and who
cost the public purse the most based on the
following criteria:
•
CRIME – households with 1 or more
under 18 years old with a proven
offence in the last 2 months; AND/OR
households where 1 or more member
has an ASBO, ASB injunction or antisocial behaviour contract or where the
family has been subject to a housing
related ASB intervention in the last 12
months
•
EDUCATION – a child has been subject
to permanent exclusion; three or more
fixed exclusions across the last three
consecutive terms OR is in a Pupil
Referral Unit or alternative provision
because they have previously been
excluded; OR is not on a school roll
AND/OR has had 15% unauthorised
absences or more from school across
the last three consecutive terms
•
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UNEMPLOYMENT – households which
have an adult on DWP out of work
benefit
LOCAL AUTHORITY DISCRETION
– families with a child on a Child
Protection Plan
This has ensured Families Together have
focussed on engaging with a cohort of families
in their first 12 months who are also a priority
to partner agencies across Cheshire West and
Chester. To facilitate effective engagement
with families the Families Together Team
developed enhanced customer profiles to gain a
greater understanding of the whole family unit
and their needs and current or last know lead
worker. Partner agencies have been integral
to developing this intelligence led approach.
These profiles aid the Family Advocate in
the development of an overarching plan for
the whole family that takes into account the
impacts of individual actions, enabling improved
co-ordination, prioritisation and planning for
families.
Work with the Year 1 cohort of 176 families is
now underway with 91% of families currently
engaged with the Families Together Team.
Families that have previously been hard to reach
have now engaged with the Programme which
is a testament to the aims of the Programme and
the outcomes that the Programme is aiming to
achieve with these families.
72%
of year 1 families have stepped
down from social care
Source: Cheshire West and Chester Children’s
Social Care (Liquidlogic)
YOS have welcomed the introduction of the Families Together Team within
the West Cheshire area, and keen to continue to support its development and
effectiveness. There are considerable benefits of a joined up approach in our
work with a significant number of families given the shared nature of our priority
outcomes. We look forward to contributing further to the interventions which can
be provided, and working closely with the Family Advocates to help families make
and maintain changes which are identified and needed.
Jez Brown, Deputy Manager, Youth Offending Team
9.Influenced, shaped and
informed DCLG and
Whitehall Policy
The Government has been very clear that work
with Troubled Families requires real change to
the systems that Local Authorities and partners
use to work with families with more complex
needs. For example, in speeches about the
importance of this work the Prime Minister has
referred to “sweeping away the bureaucracy
that gets in the way”.
The Troubled Families Unit have confirmed that
they see our work as providing a leading edge
example of how this system change work across
partners should be approached – making the
One Family, One Worker, One Plan model of
working a reality by dealing with the multiple
ways of working that can frustrate families
and workers alike. We are regularly asked for
information about our approach and asked to
present at national events – sharing our work
and picking up helpful ideas from others at the
same time.
The basis of the Families Together approach
has also been central to the way the Altogether
Better Whole Place Community Budget
Programme has developed – and through this
our work can influence national policy as well as
help other areas.
We are moving into a new phase – where the
Families Together Programme will be delivered
from new integrated case management teams.
This is a major step forward and a great example
of how the family intervention approach can be
developed more widely.
30%
of year 1 families have
been closed to child protection
Source: Cheshire West and Chester Children’s Social Care (Liquidlogic)
Summary
Families Together and partners will continue to inform and drive service transformation to
ensure we remain at the cutting edge of service provision that meets the needs of families
across Cheshire West and Chester. Families Together is confident that through continuing to
work closely together the emerging Integrated Early Support model will develop into a truly
integrated partnership approach that will improve outcomes for families and partners alike.
Families Together
Transforming Support for Families
Contact the team on 0151 356 6559 or 0151 356 6558
or email [email protected]
Families Together is a programme run by
Cheshire West and Chester Council