Agenda item

To receive a presentation from Sean Rafferty on the work of the Family Support Programme.

Sean Rafferty, Surrey County Council, gave a presentation in respect of the Surrey Family Support Programme which had been set up to support families identified as having complex, multiple issues that required the input of significant resources from a number of different agencies.

The programme had been set up by Surrey County Council in 2011 as part of the Government’s Troubled Families initiative.  Families were identified for inclusion on the programme via a variety of routes including referrals made by single agencies including the Police, Health Services, Education and Children’s Social Care and via the interrogation of County Council databases.  The Family Support Programme then assessed and prioritised each potential family against a set of criteria developed by Central Government.  Families selected for the programme underwent a single multi-agency assessment of their needs and a single multi-agency support plan for the family was developed. 

Using the Team around the Family approach, the local Family Support Team then allocated each family a lead professional who would co-ordinate the support that would be given to the family and bring together the practitioners working with each family to develop a systematic approach to help and support the family in-line with the plans agreed with the families.  Where it was identified that a family had additional needs then a locally based Family Co-ordinator provided additional intensive support to the family for a period of between twelve and eighteen weeks. The Programme had now been fully operational for two years and work was taking place to integrate the system and approach into practitioners’ everyday work. 

It has been estimated that there were in excess of 5,000 families with complex needs living in Surrey and the Government had set Surrey County Council the target of turning around the lives of 1,050 families by May 2015.  This target had been met ahead of schedule in February 2015 and the programme subsequently expanded to include families who had initially been assessed as being a lower priority and less complex needs.  Following agreement from Central Government, the Surrey Troubled Families Programme aims to turn around the lives of a further 3,660 families by April 2020.

Arising from Members’ questions and comments the following points were noted:

·         The participating families lived predominantly in urban areas and tended to fall into lower socio-economic categories.

·         During 2015/16, the Programme had worked with 1,200 families and 600 of these had received additional intensive support.

·         Although, data was collected on a range of indicators including the number of adults helped back into work and the number of school days missed practitioners also measured success in terms of the positive feedback received from families following intervention work.

·         The local team based at Surrey Heath Council were considered to be exemplars of good practice and work was taking place to replicate the approach taken elsewhere in the County.

·         The Family’s key worker would work intensively with the family for the first six weeks of the programme.  During this time priority issues and appropriate agency involvement would be identified.

It was acknowledged that more could be done to raise awareness of the Programme amongst Councillors. Councillor Morley, Regulatory Portfolio Holder, agreed to brief members about the Programme.

It was agreed that the Committee would receive regular updates on the Family Support Programme.

The Chairman thanked Sean Rafferty for his presentation.