Agenda item

(To receive a report from Tara Jones, Head of Service – Children in Care Transformation and Hannah Fassler, Interim Head of Service for Boston/South Holland Locality, which invites the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee to consider a report on the Family Hubs Feasibility and the refreshed Supporting Families Programme (formerly Troubled Families), which is being presented to the Executive Councillor for Children's Services, Community Safety and Procurement for a decision between 04 and 08 July 2022)

Consideration was given to a report by Tara Jones, Head of Service – Children in Care Transformation and Hannah Fassler, Interim Head of Service for Boston and South Holland Locality, which invited the Committee to consider a report on the Family Hubs Feasibility and the refreshed Supporting Families Programme, which was being presented to the Executive Councillor for Children's Services, Community Safety and Procurement for a decision between 04 and 08 July 2022. The following matters were reported:

·   The government had made £82 million available for the development of Family Hub networks across 75 Local Authorities.

·   The Family Hub feasibility assessment confirmed that the Council had a strong Early Help system and Early Childhood strategy and highlighted opportunities to strengthen services.

·   The Council’s children’s centres and strong outreach services were recognised as an essential element of establishing a Family Hub network.

·   Areas of focus in establishing the network included:

o   Increased visibility of the programme

o   Alignment with other priorities and initiatives

o   Appropriate governance

o   Revision of the Local Supporting Families Outcomes Framework

o   Building the evidence of what works locally, for whom and why, including cost benefit analysis

o   Link up developments within Start for Life and Family Hubs.

o   Family Hubs joined initiatives and early help services together to improve access to services and connected families with professionals, services, and providers.

o   Family Hubs brought together services for families with children of all ages (0-19) or up to 25 with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), with a great Start for Life offer at their core.

o   Family Hubs were to offer both online and physical services.

o   The Council would receive base level funding until the roll out of services were reviewed, at which point trail blazing funding would become available to fund further innovation.

During consideration of this item, the Committee raised some of the following comments:

·       The Council was in a very strong position compared to a number of other local authorities due to the retention of all its children’s centres and the strong services provided through them. This new programme would create opportunities to improve the current offer and reach more vulnerable families.

·       The Family Hubs approach would be focused upon strong universal services with the Start for Life offer being at its core. Family Hubs services would focus upon supporting families when difficulties or worries start to emerge, to avoid escalation to the point where intervention from statutory social care was needed.

·       Family Hubs was a model which would be based around the 48 children’s centres across the localities but would also have an outreach provision for interacting with ‘seldom reachable or heard’ families by utilising resources in communities and working with the community, voluntary and faith sectors, and a digital offer for families to access which would set out what was on offer in their own community and locality.

·   The Family Hubs approach and Start for Life offer would be available to everyone, including any refugee families. Good communications and branding would be important to ensure that every place in the community that a family might go to can access information about Family Hubs and its offer.

RESOLVED:

1.That the Committee supports the recommendations to the Executive Councillor as set out in the report

2.That the comments made be passed onto the Executive Councillor for her consideration.