Families First Partnership reform programme proposals
We hear feedback from our families and schools all the time that tells us the Children’s Social Care system is hard to navigate, its confusing and often it’s difficult to form strong relationships as children move between teams and services.
This month we have launched a consultation on a major reform of our children’s social care services, to deliver the Governments Families First Partnership Programme. The reform is intended to make the system simpler and more accessible. To support earlier action and have less handovers and changes of team and allocated worker.
The Families First Partnership reforms are transforming the way we work with children, young people and families. At its heart is a commitment to providing help earlier, strengthening multi-agency working, and making better use of family and community networks.
This will mean some significant changes to the way our Family Early Help and social work services are structured in Southwark, with separate services and teams being merged into a single all-through Family Help Service. We are also consulting on moving the future service into a locality model, bringing services closer to schools to create more consistent and stronger relationships.
The programme shifts support towards a more preventative and relationship-based approach, ensuring families receive the right support at the right time, before challenges escalate and require more intensive intervention.
This ambition aligns with ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’, which sets out how agencies, organisations and practitioners should work together to help, support and protect children and families. The guidance recognises that for a system of support to be effective it needs to be available from the point of need – universal and community-based services, through to Family Help, combining targeted early help with child-in-need support, to statutory intervention where required.
Importantly, wherever families are supported within the system, their own unique mix of needs and strengths remain central, creating a ‘families first’ culture. For families with more complex situations Family Help practitioners provide a consistent point of contact and understanding, while family group decision making is integrated at every key stage.
The introduction of Family Help services and a dedicated Multi-Agency Child Protection Team delivers earlier intervention and a more effective child protection system that brings together the expertise of professionals across agencies.
As a result, this joined-up system creates a more seamless experience for families, reducing the disruption caused by moving between services, to deliver a whole-family plan that builds on strengths to improve outcomes for children.
You can find our full proposals here and a handy ‘quick guide’ that sets out our plans and some of the implications for schools.
We are keen to hear the voice of schools in designing our final arrangements, in particular how we can strengthen our joint working and how we can make the system easier for you to navigate. Please give us your feedback using our simple form or by emailing the management lead directly: michael.crowe@southwark.gov.uk