Family Recovery Project From Pathfinder to Service Transformation: lessons and recommendations.

Family Recovery Project

From Pathfinder to Service Transformation:

lessons and recommendations

Tanya KempService Manager

Kelly McSherrySubstance Misuse Consultant

Building a team

Bid to the DCSF

One City funding

Beg, steal or borrow – MET Police, Housing, Mental Health, Education, DAT – Children’s Social Work, Community Protection, Action for Children

Page 4

Family Recovery Project – The Process

May 2010

Who are we? FRP is a co-located multi agency team..

What do we do..?

FRP persistently support and intervene with families who are at risk of losing their children, home and/or liberty…

FRP work in a targeted and phased way to support a family’s capacity for change and to embed and sustain changes within the family…

FRP work with families who have a history of non-engagement with services, or where, even with multi-agency support, positive change has been limited or not sustained….

FRP work to improve the experience of both the family and the communities in which they live…

The Team: Family Perspective

We work with around80 families at any

one time

Families are referred to us from across the

borough, existing panels such as ASBAG, MARAC etc

tend to generate most referrals

We aim to workintensively with aFamily for around

12 months

How do we work with Families.. Consent..?

Consent based model…

Consent is a two step process –

1 - Initial explicit informed consent from the family for FRP to share information

2 - Post TAF, the family ‘consent’ to the Careplan contract

This facilitates a positive, transparent working relationshipwith families..

Not required for statutory cases, but sought regardless

Family referred to project – do they meet threshold?

Overview of process

Consent (for information sharing) gained from family

Information Gathering - Information desk provides detailed overview of family

TAF - Multi agency meeting of all involved with family – information shared

Contract with consequences (Careplan) – agreed by family

Regular TAF reviews – Highlighting any risk, performance against Careplan, worker supervision, information sharing and Family Involvement

Intensive working 3-4 visits a week outcome focussed, gets things moving quickly

Closure – Hand off to lower tier or community services

Training and work

Probation

Immigration

Schools

AdultServices

Health

Community protection

Children’s services

Police

Informationdesk

The Information Desk:• Senior Analyst • Analyst• Police officer x 2• ASB case worker

The Information Desk

Intelligence Report -

Provides an accurate and up to date summary of all relevant family information, highlighting presenting issues or risks, flagging any intelligence gaps.

Initially used to inform the TAF meeting and Careplan. Following this to provide up to date information as and when required.

The information desk draws information from a number of sources through either direct access or contacts within partner

agencies, providing a rounded view of the family unique to FRP.

What is the purpose of the Intelligence Report..?

Providing accurate information on:

• Who the family are? Where they live, the family composition, a detailed breakdown of all immediate and significant family members / friends. Specifically highlighting any risks to workers.

• What are the presenting issues / risks?

• What are the information gaps? What do we not know about this family that is either a presenting issue, a risk or a potential barrier to change

• Who is already working with the family?

• What has worked and what hasn’t, to avoid duplication of costly interventions.

The information desk can draw information from a number of sources, providing a rounded view of the family unique to FRP.

Information gathering, collating and sharing is key to ensuring safe, accurate and efficient decision making.

Presenting multi agency information in a new way..

Timelines..

How do we store / share this information..?

Used to store a variety of information, including;

Individual family caseload ‘sites’ (access is restricted to team members working with the family only) Team information ‘sites’ (such as leave calendars, training information, announcements etc)

Information can be uploaded (by individual team members) and disseminated quickly and efficiently.

Sharepoint represents the change in working cultures in relation to sharing information

“The teams use of Sharepoint is phenomenal, don’t underestimate what an achievement this is”Trish Kearney SCIE

SharePoint

Online Data repository, accessed on a permission led basis by all team members and

partner agencies working with FRP.

Case Study.. Family A

Background: 14 year history of serious DV; poor school attendance, mother’s depression/low mood; teenage pregnancy; overcrowding, debt/rent arrears; poor parenting; single parent; father convictions for violence, ASB by child and rent arrears leading to Notice of eviction

What we will do:

• Intensive intervention with mother, regarding parenting and routines to improve boundaries and school attendance for younger children.

• Individualised benefits/debt advice

• ASB caseworker to coordinate with safer neighbourhood team

• Eldest engaged with youth services; mentor

• Address housing and overcrowding issues

• Address experience of DV with mother and provide support around impact

• Offer family therapy

• Work with father around contact with children

• Father to be offered DV risk assessment

• Health Visitor to check new baby’s progress

Case Study - Careplan..

Results:

• Dramatic reduction in ASB

• Improved school attendance

• Father DV assessed and intervention in place

• Alcohol treatment for father in place

• Oldest child and her baby re-housed

• Debt addressed

• Victim support for mum

Case Study - Outcomes..

• Whole view of the family• Team around the family • Two lead professionals for adults and children• Integrated Family Care Plan – adult and children’s needs –

focused on key areas• Quick information through Information Desk• Capacity building• Focus on adults needs – DV Worker, substance misuse

worker• Intensive outreach – fast, intensive, targeted• Outcomes and consequences – speedy decision making –

relevant professionals in the team

All in one project

The Model: what’s different about FRP..?

Page 19

Family Recovery Project –

Learning so far and Evaluation

May 2010

Formal evaluation – the who and the what

University of East Anglia – led by Prof. June Thornburn.

DCSF / York consulting.

WCC Cost Avoidance FIP – Natcen evaluation

Plus separate measures for NHS and Police

Findings : Child Protection

FRP/CPOutcome/Progress Outcome progress Control

CP

FRP A No progress and managed under PLO No progress and managed under PLO

CP A

FRP B Progress and heading to being removed from plan

Progress and no longer subject to CP plan

CP B

FRP C Progress and heading to being removed from plan

No progress and in care proceedings

CP C

FRP D Progress and heading to being removed from plan

Little progress and Child Likely to come into care – high cost placement

CP D

FRP E Child Removed from CP Plan CP Plan continued – Risk being managed

CP E

FRP F Progress and heading to being removed from plan

Child no longer subject to CP plan but had

CP F

to go through proceedings to get there

FRP G No Progress and Long term CP registration

No Progress and managed under PLO

CP G

FRP H Managed under PLO following long period of superficial engagement. Now engaging very well.

No longer CP plan in place CP H

FRP I CP Plan in place but engaging very well and heading for de-plan

No progress and in care proceedings

CP I

FRP JNo Progress and Long term CP registration No control case available

• Capacity building in families seem clearer and more of a priority• DV support for parents have helped them – empowered and equipped to cope• Practical support for parents who had never been parented invaluable• IOW/DV provides support these parents don’t have friends • Parents feel contained and so can focus on issues pertaining to children• Better, quicker, and more effective information sharing between SW and FRP

saves time – no need to chase multiple agencies as all services in house under one roof

• Time saved by not having to try to consult on issues SW don’t really know about – e.g. chasing housing, benefits, etc

• Serious case reviews show that often SW too focused on adult needs rather than focusing on child’s needs and this approach shows SW can come back to focusing on child

• Need to address less in monthly visits – visit content more manageable• De-stress – knowing work is manageable and cases are safe and under

control• 2 people available to deal with crises – Lead professional for child AND adult• SW doesn’t necessarily need to drop everything for every crisis as Lead

Prof/IOW available to support family in difficult times and contain risks

Findings : Child Protection themes

Page 23

Family Recovery Project – Cost avoidance

May 2010

Cost avoidance

An over-riding objective for the Council was to measure the cost ‘avoidance’ of this new way of working, to understand how much this intensive type of work would cost and how could this preventative work help avoid future costs to Westminster, its partners and public purse.

Three costs to consider:• What could the family cost in a ‘do nothing”

scenario• Actual cost of FRP intervention – based on unit cost

or time spent with each family–£15-20k per family• Avoidance of future cost to public purse

Cost avoidance: existing costs to services

• Challenging, some agencies do not collect data at service user level, costs of interventions unknown

• Short term v long term costs – e.g. long term and secondary impacts not measurable

• Children’s Social Care - a child in care costs £50k annually• Criminal justice – annual costs for a male prisoner = £27k/female

prisoner = £48k• An unemployed family of four in rented accommodation costs £30k

annually• NHS: Obesity

Mental illnessSubstance misuse - £47k pa per user

Early death

Cost avoidance: the model

This model is based on:

• nationally available figures on the cost of various negative outcomes

• projecting the likely cost for each family based on our assessment of their needs

• the actual cost of the FRP intervention

• using the recommended DCSF FIP success rates to forecast outcomes and hence

• produce an estimate of the probable avoided costs

Cost avoidance: the numbers

Domain Example costs Total cost avoided for 60 families in

Year 1

Whose budget?

Housing Temp accommodation, rent arrears, evictions and dealing with noise.

£243k Evictions cost to landlords. Noise and nuisance to WCC and RSL’s. Housing benefit - DWP.

Anti-social behaviour, criminality

Police and court costs, imprisonment.

£650k A small amount of the cost is incurred by WCC for responding to ASB, but the majority is to the criminal justice system - Police, Home Office, Ministry of Justice.

Educational failure

Young people without employment.

£80k Dept of Work & Pensions (DWP)

Worklessness Benefits dependence of adults in family.

£150k DWP - based on 5 adults who have started work following FRP intervention.

Poor parenting (inc domestic violence)

Social work investigation, assessment, interventions and cost of care for a child.

£503k WCC Children Services costs based on preventing 8 children coming into care, domestic violence interventions and other social care costs.

Health - adult and child

Long term impact of mental ill-health, physical ill health, substance misuse.

£407k NHS and WCC - further work is planned with NHS to obtain more robust data. Potential further saving to DWP if adult is unable to work.

TOTAL £2,033,000 Less costs of FRP service

£1,200,000

Year 1 Net £ 833,000