Transcript Document

Family Support– Welsh Government
Perspective
Lucy Akhtar, Children, Young People and Families
Communities and Tackling Poverty
Welsh Government
Outline of Presentation
•Welsh Government’s priorities
•Welsh Government’s approach to family support
•Families First and Flying Start – messages from recent
evaluation
Programme for Government Commitments
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Education
21st Century Healthcare
Supporting People
Tackling Poverty
Children's rights based approach
•Welsh Government is committed to the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) as an
integral part of our work to improve children’s outcomes
and help them to achieve their potential
•Welsh Government is committed to working towards full
implementation of the Rights of Children and Young
Persons (Wales) Measure 2011 – duty to have due
regard to the UNCRC
Approach to Family Support
• Shift to outcome focus rather than solely outputs
• Whole family approach that is strengths-based
• Stronger culture of assessment, identification of need,
information sharing, prevention and earlier intervention
• Support for families through all levels of the continuum of
need
• Develop and improve our evidence base of what works
and what does not
• Greater integration of service delivery to ensure greater
economy, efficiency and effectiveness
• Address wider issues (risk factors) that may interfere
with parenting capacity
Key Family Support Programmes
Significant investment by Welsh Government:
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The Integrated Family Support Service
Communities First
Families First
Flying Start
Family Information Service
Funding of Third Sector organisations through CFOG
(CFDG from September 2014)
Families First
• Joint Assessment Family Framework JAFF used to assess the
needs of the whole family
• A Team Around the Family TAF model that oversees and
coordinates the interventions families receive
• Coherent range of strategically commissioned, time-limited, family
focused services/projects linked to local identification of need Delivered by Local Authorities and their partners
• Participation in inter-authority learning sets both nationally and
locally
• Improved support for families with a disabled child
National evaluation of Families First Year 1 report
• Independent evaluation - Ipsos MORI and Ecorys
• Focus of the report - early implementation and delivery of
the programme
• Draws on research with national stakeholders including
Families First practitioners
• Questions around impact and effectiveness will be
addressed in later evaluation reports
Findings
• Stakeholders support the design of all five key elements of the
programme
• Implementation of JAFF and TAF progressing well
• Positive changes in the way families are assessed and supported e.g.
early intervention, active engagement of families, greater coordination,
focus on family’s strengths and on outcomes
• Improving the process of commissioning by introducing a more
coherent, structured and needs-based approach to commissioning;
• Improvement in the scope and nature of the services that are
commissioned by basing commissioning on locally-identified need
• Disability strand successful in protecting and maintaining services for
families with a disabled child
• Learning Sets viewed as beneficial
Flying Start
• Free quality, part-time childcare for 2-3 year olds
• An enhanced Health Visiting service
• Parenting Support
• Early Language Development
Flying Start Evaluation
Independent programme of evaluation - Ipsos MORI, with
support from SQW
•Qualitative report on high need families – (October 2013)
•Area case study report examining the implementation and
delivery of Flying Start across all 22 local authorities
(November 2013)
•An impact report based on a survey of parents using Flying
Start and a comparator group (December 2013)
•A synthesis report that summarises the findings and lessons
from all of these reports (January 2014)
Qualitative research with high need families
• Most families felt well supported and positive about the
services they received
• The enhanced health visitor provision is key to enabling
better and faster assessment of need; more effective
referral and signposting; and motivating parents to take up
services
• Parents report positive changes to family life – better
relationships, routines and healthy eating
• Parents often said they had not realised that parenting
skills could consciously be improved
• Parents reported that their children had enhanced school
readiness, social skills and confidence
• Not all parents understand the benefits of FS
“The best thing I ever learnt was distraction... I still use it
now on my six year old.”
Area case study synthesis report
• Many areas have now established a continuum of
provision, from enhancing parenting skills and
strategies amongst parents with low levels of need
to providing intensive support for those facing
particular challenges
• Some challenges engaging certain groups – e.g.
fathers, BME parents
• Various activities identified to engage parents
Impact report
• Between June 2012 and January 2013 over 2,000
parents were surveyed about parenting, the
development of their child and any services their
family had used whilst bringing up their child.
• Half of the parents lived in Flying Start areas and
the other half in selected comparison areas.
• Significantly more parents in Flying Start areas
were aware of and reported attending parenting
programmes
• 89% of parents in Flying Start areas reported that
they had enough advice and support on how to
look after their child and to keep them happy and
healthy
Learning from the evaluation
• National Shared Learning Event – 12 December
2013
• Action Learning Sets training
• 4 Regional Flying Start Learning Sets to be
developed
• Delivery of training to Flying Start staff on core
positive parenting principles – pilot in Cardiff
• Flying Start Parenting Guidance
• Parenting Support Guidance- Overarching
Principles
“Coming here now and having Flying Start, there’s a
whole world that I didn’t even know existed because I
come from a small little village where there was
nothing. And now they can put me in touch with
anybody, I’m doing this training. Before I thought I
wasn’t anything at all, I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have
qualifications, I didn’t have nothing and there was no
way up from there, but now there is. It’s like
sunshine…I can actually have a future now.”
Lone parent, Flying Start User
Thank you / Diolch
[email protected]