SCRUTINY: CHILDREN’S SERVICES REVIEW GROUP (CSRG) AGENDA ITEM 9

DATE OF MEETING: 26 June 2019

REPORT OF: Adesua Osime, Service Director of Operations

REPORT AUTHOR: Denise Goodwin, Service Manager for Family Safeguarding Tel: 01582 548104

SUBJECT: Family Safeguarding Programme Update

PURPOSE

1. The purpose of this report is to provide an update on the progress and embedding of the Family Safeguarding Model in Luton.

RECOMMENDATION

2. CSRG is requested to note the update and endorse continuation with the programme until March 2020.

REPORT Background

3. Hertfordshire County Council secured funding during Round One of the Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme to implement Family Safeguarding. During Round Two funding was provided to implement Family Safeguarding in four new local authorities with support from Hertfordshire including: Luton, West Berkshire, Bracknell Forest, and Peterborough.

4. Family Safeguarding is a whole system reform of Children’s Services designed to tackle challenges around children’s safeguarding, particularly the compounding factors to risk of harm known as the ‘trio of vulnerabilities’ (domestic abuse, substance misuse and mental health). It has three main elements: multi- disciplinary teams, motivational interviewing and a structured workbook. The Model

5. The Family Safeguarding Model (the model) is a partnership between the Police, Health (including Mental Health), Probation and Substance Misuse Services; all working together to improve outcomes and keep children and young people safely at home.

6. Key elements of the model are:

• Specialist adult workers within the trio of vulnerabilities areas joining children’s social work teams • Training in Motivational Interviewing as a framework of practice for all staff in children’s services • Group case supervisions with all practitioners involved in the case providing a joint risk assessment • A 8 module intervention programme and structured tools to support direct work with children and evidence impact and outcomes • Joint recording on the child’s record to show family structure, relationships and progress including input from adult workers supporting the parents/ carers

7. The governance of this model sits with a Strategic Partnership Board, which is made of senior leads from all key partners who meet bi-monthly to track progress and support with any issues arising.

The Evaluation

8. The model was introduced in Luton in 2017 and programme was set up to implement this model of practice across the neighbourhood teams. As part of the implementation programme a whole council approach was taken to ensure the model is successfully embedded into good practice and achieves improved outcomes for children and young people.

9. As part of the Department for Education’s (DfE) requirements this model is subject to independent evaluation across all five authorities involved in the second wave of projects; to better understand the impact and benefit in other areas outside of Hertfordshire.

10. The DfE have commissioned York Consulting to complete this evaluation which began in December 2017 and is due to complete next year (2020) with a final report being published at end.

11. The evaluation methodology consists of four key elements:

• Family case studies with families who have been supported through the model

• Practitioner survey’s and focus groups • Strategic consultations with managers in all five local authorities. • Data collection and analysis Progress to date

Multi-Disciplinary Teams

12. A key element of the model is the multi-disciplinary teams which include Children’s Social Workers, Adult’s Drug and Alcohol Recovery Workers, Adult’s Mental Health Workers and Adult’s Domestic Violence Workers.

13. At present there are 5 family safeguarding teams in Luton Children’s Services and each team has a mix of practioners from the trio of vulnerabilities areas working alongside the Children’s Social Workers. To date Luton has recruited:

• 5 additional Children’s Social Workers • 3 additional Deputy Team Managers • 4 additional Business Support Officers • 1 additional Senior Family Support Worker • 1 Clinical Psychologist • 1 Senior Mental Health Worker • 2 Mental Health Workers • 1 Senior Drug and Alcohol Worker and Team Leader • 2 Drug and Alcohol workers • 1 Senior Domestic Abuse Worker • 1 Domestic Abuse Probation Officer • 2 Domestic Abuse Victims Workers 14. Following the initial evaluation of the Hertfordshire model (completed by the University of Bedfordshire) the inclusion of adult workers into the teams has been one of the most successful elements of the model. This has been echoed by the Luton staff who have feedback via the practitioner surveys, supervisions, and various team meetings to confirm this has been one of the most effective elements of the model.

15. Having adult workers based in the teams and available to consult with or call on when required to support the whole family has had a positive impact on practice. Staff have fed-back in practitioner surveys noting one of the most successful factors include their ability to undertake joint visits more promptly, and the ability of adult workers to support parents who would not have met existing thresholds.

Communication and Information Sharing

16. As part of the Family Safeguarding Model and the multi-disciplinary elements of the teams, one of the most important areas to consider was the sharing and recording of information. With partner engagement and support in Luton, a data sharing agreement is in place to safeguard against any concerns and ensure families are protected. The ability for practitioners to share information and record in a single family record has allowed for more joined-up working across disciplines. Staff have feedback on the benefits of this including improved decision making with access to shared records and therefore, more consistent service for families in Luton.

Motivational Interviewing

17. Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a practice framework that has been introduced as part of the Family Safeguarding Model. It is a dynamic process that takes a situation as it is, then finds ways of making the encounter as positive an experience as possible, encouraging the individual to think for themselves and to engage with change.

18. As part of the implementation of the model in Luton all practitioners in Children’s Services were invited to complete the training. There was a significant take up of the training with over 220 practitioners now trained in Luton. The training proved to be so successful, that the Luton Safeguarding Children’s Board (LSCB) commissioned the same training for its partners.

19. Staff who fed-back in the practitioner surveys recognised the advantages of MI and noted its effectiveness as a tool. Some of the advantages for staff have included better family engagement and quality of conversation and empowered families to take greater ownership of their situation as a result of MI. Staff also noted families have been more able to reflect on and review their parenting styles. However, MI has proven to be less effective when used with families that required an interpreter or where families have a long history of social work input and entrenched and serious issues.

Group Case Supervision

20. Group Case Supervision allows all practitioners involved in a case to come together and review the case with managers as well as discuss and manage the key risks around the family as a whole. Initial feedback around group case supervision has been mixed.

21. Staff recognise the benefits of shared risk ownership and skills as well as the benefits to families with more coherent response to their needs, as well as support from practitioners with a broader range of skills and expertise. However, staff have also fed back around the amount of time this process takes, particularly with regards to the availability of practioners working across multiple teams.

Next Steps

Evaluation

22. York Consulting (independent evaluators) will continue their evaluation of the Family Safeguarding Model in Luton and the other five authorities that for this second wave of innovation projects. Once this evaluation has been completed, York will provide a final evaluation report highlighting the key findings and areas of ongoing improvement. 23. As part of the ongoing activity, Luton will continue to work with Hertfordshire and the other three authorities to provider regular data reporting up to the Department for Education (DfE); as well as maintaining the joint operational meetings that were set up to support the 5 authorities in their implementation and embedding of the model.

Sustainability

24. There is still some work to do in Luton to fully embed the Family Safeguarding model and expand the good practice across all Children’s Services. The sustainability of the Family Safeguarding Model in Luton has been and remains a key area of focus. Most key elements of the family safeguarding model are now sustained through successful embedding of practice such as:

• The workbook on LCS (which allows for family recording) has been successfully procured from Liquid Logic and Luton (and Civica) staff have been trained to provide ongoing support and maintenance of the system.

• Group case supervision has been embedded into practice in the Family Safeguarding Teams and a policy is in place to support staff in all children’s services.

• Motivational Interviewing training has proven to be greatly successful and as a result has been commissioned by Learning and Development services as part of the corporate children’s services training programme. This allows all new or existing staff to book onto the training as part of their ongoing development and support for families.

• The modular intervention programme and tools have been secured for Luton and form part of the growing kit for practitioners to build on as part of practice improvement activity in Luton.

25. In addition to this Luton has successfully secured funding for the additional children’s social work posts that were added as part of the model implementation. This funding allows Luton to retain the fifth Family Safeguarding Team and alignment of the service with the other Children’s Services.

26. The ongoing focus for sustainability remains around securing the adult workers posts. The success of the family safeguarding model has often been attributed to having multi-disciplinary teams where practioners can share learning, skills and expertise, efficiently and effectively to achieve the best outcomes for the families they support. Therefore, sustaining the adult workers in the LUTON Family Safeguarding teams is of the utmost priorities.

27. The adult worker posts have been secured for a further year (up to end of March 2020) through management of recruitment into the posts and realigning of the grant funding. In order to continue to sustain the model in Luton discussion have taken place with key providers to secure ongoing commitment to the model and sustain the multi-disciplinary teams. These discussions are an ongoing process and all providers have engaged with the council to work together to sustain the model.

28. As the evaluation progress and more data and evidence is available around the impact of the Family Safeguarding Model. Partners (particularly those with adult workers based in the family safeguarding teams) are beginning to see a change in their areas and progress is being monitored in conjunction with the council. This joint working approach has allowed Luton to remain engaged with partners and evidence the positive benefits of the model to key strategic leads. This forms the strongest for sustainability as discussion continue.

29. Other areas being considered by Luton to support the sustainability of the multidisciplinary teams include further grant funding bids through the DfE and other key organisations.

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