2012 - leicestershire's family poverty strategy

Leicestershire’s Family Poverty Strategy

June 2012

Family Poverty Needs Assessment & Strategy

Contents Executive Summary

1

1 Introduction: What is family poverty?

12

2 Our need: How does family poverty present

itself in Leicestershire

14

3 Our approach: How we will tackle family poverty

21

4 Our model: how we work with families

25

5 Building a family’s capacity to exit or avoid

poverty

32

6 Building capacity to help families help

themselves

49

Appendix A – National Policy Context 60

Appendix B – Organisations who contributed to the needs

assessment and strategy development

64

Appendix C – Summary of recommendations and responsible

partnership and project boards

65

Appendix D – Definition of ‘Prevention’; ‘Early Intervention’;

‘Specialist Intervention’

73

Appendix E – Family poverty basket of indicators 75

Executive Summary

Our child poverty needs assessment led us to the

conclusion that to tackle child poverty, we need a

family poverty strategy.

What is child poverty?

Technically, child poverty is defined as the proportion of

children living in families with a reported income of less

than 60% of median income.

On 2009 figures, it was officially estimated that there are

16,165 children in poverty in Leicestershire, 11.66% of all

the county’s children1. A figure and proportion rising

having stood at 14,495 and 10.5% in 2008 and likely to rise

further given the reforms and reductions to benefits.

This technical definition is too narrow however. There are

key questions we can ask to establish a deeper

understanding. Does a child have a hot meal every day?

Can a child or their parent or guardian buy essentials when

necessary? Do they have access to a safe outdoor space, a

space to do homework? Does a child have a week on

holiday every year or pursue a hobby or leisure activity

once a month? Can friends come round to where they

live?

Our needs assessment:

Underpinning this

strategy is

Leicestershire’s Child

Poverty Needs

Assessment – an

assessment based on

data, the experience of

frontline workers and

experts, and the

experiences and

opinions of the

county’s children

themselves.

We don’t have answers for these questions. Between and

beyond the technical definition and these material

concerns lies an understanding of what child poverty

actually is. Our needs assessment has looked between and

beyond analysing datasets, interviewing practitioners and

young people and establishing a greater understanding of

what is child poverty and how it affects families. This

understanding shapes this strategy.

We have concluded that poverty is not exclusively or

helpfully measured solely by income. And any response

should neither ignore nor concentrate solely upon it. It is

1 Page 7, Leicestershire’s Child Poverty Needs Assessment, Figure 1 - National Indicator 116 –

Proportion of children living in poverty in Leicestershire and England as defined by those children

living in families with a reported income is less than 60% of median income, which has since been

updated at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/personal-tax-credits/cps-la09.xls

obvious however that our ability to eradicate child poverty

in Leicestershire will be tested if there is not a significant

growth in the county’s economy.

Poverty is neither permanent nor a condition of neglect.

Poverty is often situational and sometimes

intergenerational. Poverty is more likely to exist among

children in care or adults who were once children in care,

in families from some ethnic groups, in families that

contain young carers, or those with offenders, or those

who have substance misuse issues, or mental health

problems, or within families that contain disabled parents

or children. In a rural county like Leicestershire, poverty

can also be exacerbated by the distance and costs

associated with accessing services and opportunities.

Our needs assessment has led us to the conclusion that to

seek a definition and solution to child poverty neglects one

essential and obvious fact: a child’s poverty is an outcome

of a family’s poverty. It is neither created nor best

eradicated in isolation.

One family we worked

with had lived without

a cooker, fridge freezer

or washing machine for

3 months. They were

accused of

neglect because the

children’s clothes were

dirty, but no washing

machine and having to

shop daily? Living like

this would be a

challenge to anyone.2

Analysis and experience, spreadsheet and frontline, also

tells us that child poverty transfers through the same

families in the same localities (for example, over half of

children living in parts of Coalville and Loughborough are

living in poverty). These families often have additional,

complex needs which traverse both adult’s and children’s

services.

Poverty and neglect is

often confused – it is

presented as neglect

but, when you look at

what is going on,

actually it’s about

poverty.3

Our needs assessment didn’t just inform the strategy

about the causes and effects of poverty but also

considered the staff and services targeted at removing and

alleviating them. Staff interviewed thought that there

appeared to be a lack of understanding about the

existence of poverty, and its potential causes and

consequences. Similarly there was frustration that

interventions couldn’t be more low-key, direct and simple

2 Page 19, Leicestershire Child Poverty Needs Assessment

3 Page 20, Leicestershire Child Poverty Needs Assessment

and a consensus that all approaches to tackling child

poverty needed to be family-led.

Our approach

This is why you are reading Leicestershire’s Family Poverty

Strategy and not its Child Poverty Strategy. It is our

premise that addressing family poverty is the most

enduring way of addressing poverty among children.

Addressing, for example, issues around aspiration within a

school setting will only have limited success if these

messages aren’t reinforced, or indeed, are contradicted, at

home. A healthy, hot school meal supports a balanced

diet, it doesn’t provide one. An intervention managed

within the four walls of a public building, helps; one

successfully managed within the four walls of a home,

lasts.

“We need to work with

the whole family. We

can’t ignore the

parents.”

If you have little time and no transport, a Children’s Centre

just a few miles away might be of no benefit. If a health

visitor can’t offer or signpost someone to sound financial

advice, the next person who does offer any financial advice

may well be a loan shark. A child’s and their family’s needs

are the basis for this strategy and should be in all our work

in the future - not a corporate logo, management chain,

job description or inspection regime.

“It’s very much a sense

of you come to us.”

This is why you are reading Leicestershire’s Family Poverty

Strategy and not Leicestershire County Council’s.

Our model: How we work with families

As public service providers and commissioners in

Leicestershire, we are benefiting from a greater

understanding of how we might set about changing ‘when’

and ‘how’ we provide services. Leicestershire has been a

pioneer for working with troubled families with complex

needs, to understand their challenges and to deliver a

better approach to all such families.

Initial estimates put the number of troubled families in

Leicestershire at around 1,300 and we are also able to

estimate that there are around 2,000 families at risk from

having complex needs. These 3,300 families contain a

significant proportion of the 16,165 children estimated to

be living in poverty.

In addition to the child poverty needs assessment, this

learning has also been informed by other sources of

insight. We have trawled data and respected and

creditable literature4, mapped individual journeys of

Leicestershire’s families lives and their interactions with

the services we provide, and worked closely with some of

the most troubled families’ in Leicestershire5.

As a result we know that families perceive the services

they receive to be individual led, problem led and not

family led; managed to meet that service provider’s own

procedures and services rather than that families need.

There is a language barrier; professionals speaking

professionally, not personally, torn between befriending

and professional responsibilities. Families prefer

individuals to systems.

Instead of waiting to work with families when things have

hit crisis point, we need to understand their challenges

earlier and to provide the right sort of support earlier.

There are an increasing number of examples where this

approach has been developed6. Across 15 local authorities

working with troubled families, results showed a

significant improvement in outcomes for nearly a half

(46%) of families. Areas were also able to demonstrate

savings to local partners, so that for every £1 spent, the

Family Pathfinders generated a financial return of £1.90.

Parenting issues were

highlighted as an area

of concern in 57% of

the 1408 families

monitored – on exit,

two thirds of families

had recorded

significant

improvements.

Based on building relationships rather than negotiating

4 See Appendix A for a review of policy developments since 2010

5 See http://www.leicestershiretogether.org/index/partnerships/community_budgets-

3/fwcn/insightphase.htm for all sources of insight used in the Families with Complex Needs work 6 https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DFE-RB154.pdf

systems, with support and advocacy, and where a nudge

develops into a plan developed jointly with a family,

outcomes improve and costs fall - this very different

approach produced these very different and positive

results. Achieving these improved and sustainable

outcomes for families was dependent on the use of a key

worker responsible for providing and coordinating this

support. This key worker was, in turn, supported by a

robust framework of support, normally provided by a

multi-disciplinary team of experts.

Leicestershire will seek to apply a similar, though bespoke

approach for 3,300 families across the entire county and

some of its key principles to all service provision. The focus

will be on earlier intervention, preventing vulnerable

families and individuals from developing complex needs

and requiring costly and intense interventions. The

complexities of the public sector will not be left to families

to navigate or negotiate but managed by all our staff,

across all our organisations. For the county’s 3,300 most in

need families this would take the form of a dedicated

family support team with a lead family worker, who would

advocate and work for and with a family. To deliver this

approach:

School attendance was

an issue on entry for

30% of families. For

half of these families,

this was no longer on

exiting the project.

• We will develop integrated public and voluntary

sector family focussed services, designed around a

single Leicestershire Family Model. This model will:

• be sustainable and designed to build a family’s

capacity, self-esteem, aspirations and relationships

• focus on early years and early intervention

• aim to move families nearer to independence

from costly public sector services

• This model will be supported by

• dedicated family support team with a lead

family worker developing a whole family

assessment model

• establishing co-located staff and services

We will know we have made a positive difference on

the outcomes of troubled families when:

• The number of children living safely at home

increases

• The number of high end interventions falls (i.e.,

ASBOs, injunctions, crimes)

• Attendance rates at schools increases

• The number of families evicted falls

• The number of homeless families falls

• The number of families with complex needs falls.

Building a family’s capacity to exit or avoid poverty

The model will be developed to help families with or at risk

of having complex needs, buts its fundamental principles

are applicable to all families experiencing poverty. A family

where a parent is in employment and which is a source of

loving, affirming attachments; a home where a healthy

diet, an active lifestyle and learning is encouraged –

combined these can provide a long term sustainable exit

out of poverty. A family needs to be able to provide this

material, emotional and practical support and

encouragement. Our aim is to improve a family’s ability or

capacity to provide this support.

This includes making support available through all major

life changes - for pregnant mothers, for families with

children under 5, finding work, for families with children of

school age, and all the way through to children about to

leave compulsory full time education. It also requires

support for parents and young people so that they can be

enabled to access work through the provision of childcare,

training and education opportunities post 16. Poverty

often increases the need for this support.

Poorer children

systematically do

worse on both

cognitive and

behavioural outcomes

at both age three and

age five. Poorer

children tend to be less

ready for school.

• We will support the implementation of new work

programmes that tackle long term and

multigenerational unemployment.

• We will work with businesses, schools and colleges

to ensure that people in Leicestershire have the

right employment skills to take on the job

opportunities that will arise in Leicestershire.

• We will help families develop ‘skills for life’,

supporting the development and delivery of a range

of community based initiatives, including managing

budgets.

• We will help parents with their confidence,

encourage breastfeeding and enable families to

make healthy choices about the food they eat and

the amount of physical activity they participate in.

We will know we have made a positive difference

to a family’s skills for life when

• The number of workless households falls

• The number of unfilled vacancies falls

• Infant mortality rates and low birth weight figures

improve.

• The number of new mums starting and continuing

to breastfeed increases.

There are a number of other factors which affect a child’s

life chances – and school readiness is key, emotionally and

academically. For example, there is a strong link between

significant language delay on entry to school7 and low

attainment later on and across the UK, 50% of children

from socially disadvantaged backgrounds have language

delay issues on entering school. A child’s readiness for

school can also be enhanced by increasing their physical

activity levels and links have been drawn between this kind

of activity and better behaviour and ability to learn8.

Many children with

language delay [and] a

pre-school history of

persistent disorders

can [have them]

resolved by age 5½.9

• We will target our priority neighborhoods with

speech and language development and physical

7http://www.c4eo.org.uk/themes/earlyintervention/files/early_intervention_grasping_the_nettle_ful

l_report.pdf 8 Len Almond, British Heart Foundation

9 Bishop D V M and Adams 1990. A Prospective Study of the Relationship Between Specific Language

Impairment, Phonological Disorders and Reading Retardation, Journal of Child Psychology and

Psychiatry 31

activity programmes.

• We will ensure that staff who work with children

before they go to school develop good working

relationships with staff in schools to enable a good

transition for children, bringing the whole family

into a child’s education.

We will know we have made a positive difference

to all children’s readiness for school when

• The development gap at foundation stage closes,

between children growing up in poverty and their

peers.

• The attainment gap is reduced at Key Stage 2 in

English and maths closes, between children

receiving free school meals and their peers.

To break the intergenerational cycle of child poverty,

young people today must have the skills, confidence and

opportunity to enter adulthood able to participate in and

enjoy relationships and work. This is a significant issue.

Continuing in learning is linked to social and economic

benefits. The priority is therefore to increase the number

of 17 and 18 year old young people learning and the

amount of young people (16-24) in work.

• Our colleges and businesses will work with young

people to develop economically competitive, sector

appropriate and fit for market apprenticeship

opportunities and training courses which equip

Leicestershire’s young people with the skills our

economy needs.

• Our public services will look to develop work

experience opportunities, apprenticeships and

career pathways for those young people who are

often excluded from accessing these choices

particularly young carers, children in care and

disabled children. We will also ask those

organisations who we will commission to provide

Findings show that

almost half of young

people thought that

creating more

opportunities for

people to develop skills

was the best thing

which could be done to

reduce child poverty.

The proportion of 17-

18 was almost 60%.10

10

Page 7, Leicestershire’s Peer Led Review, part of the county’s Child Poverty Needs Assessment

services to provide similar opportunities.

We will know we have made a positive difference when

• The attainment gap closes between children

receiving free school meals and their peers (based

on achieving Key Stage 4 – five A*-C including

English and maths and achieving Level 3 at age 19).

• The percentage of young people in education,

employment and training increases.

• The percentage of people from the care system are

in education and employment at the age of 19

increases.

Building capacity to help families help themselves

For a wider more permanent impact, for a far more

efficient and effective deployment of resources, something

which can not be simply be put into a one action needs to

change. How we work.

GP surgeries, health visitors, schools, social workers,

housing officers, probation staff, the police, political

leaders, managers etc.. All and many more influence the

services that prevent a family becoming poor or lift them

out of poverty. To help families help themselves, the way

we share our resources – such as our budgets, staff,

buildings, websites, and information needs to integrate.

Help, support and advocacy should be a seamless offer

which doesn’t fray the first time two organisations are

required to work together.

[We need] to improve

the capability of

officers - being clear of

the competencies

needed to take this

wider view within a

profession11

.

• We will make access to our services simpler and

easier through shared websites, call centres and

buildings.

• We will deliver multi agency training programmes

for both the adult and children’s workforce

• We will develop a systematic approach to

signposting and referring families to more targeted

11 Page 21, Leicestershire’s Child Poverty Needs Assessment

and intensive intervention

• We will make easier the exchange of information to

allow these referrals.

• We will ensure the voice of users is heard at a

county and local level so that services are designed

and provided around families needs

• We will consider the impact on poverty of all

significant decisions.

The reasons why families live in poverty are numerous and

individual to that family. The solutions to helping a family

exit or avoid poverty need to reflect that. Our needs

assessment offers an understanding of why and how

poverty affects a family; our strategy proposes the basis

for an approach based on this understanding.


• The number of families who live in poverty falls.

Family Poverty: Introduction Needs Assessment & Strategy

Our aim

It is our aim to reduce child poverty in Leicestershire. It is our premise that this is

best achieved through addressing family poverty.

“Yes, there’s poverty everywhere, wherever you go, even in the villages.”

1. What is family poverty? 1.1 Does a child have a hot meal every day? Can a child or their parent or

guardian buy essentials when necessary? Do they have safe access to a safe

outdoor space, a space to do homework? Does a child have a week away on

holiday every year or pursue a hobby or leisure activity once a month? Can

friends come round to their house?

1.2 Leicestershire will attempt to change the way we work so that we can change

the lives our children experience; so that all the children in the county can

answer yes to the questions above.

1.3 There are many, many more manifestations of child poverty than those

questions and many definitions which seek to capture the complexity which

sits behind the why and how child poverty presents itself. The causes of child

poverty are complex; economic, social, medical - spanning service areas as

well as generations. They can be deep rooted or sudden; geographic or

demographic.

1.4 On 2009 figures, it was officially estimated that there are 16,165 children in

poverty in Leicestershire, 11.66% of all the county’s children12

. This is a figure

which is rising having stood at 14,495 in 2008 and may well have risen further

in the intervening two years. However, that naked figure is indicative only as

it neither measures relative poverty nor specific circumstances within

particular communities within Leicestershire. A family and a child do not

relate the poverty they experience to a national trend but to their neighbour.

12 Page 7, Leicestershire’s Child Poverty Needs Assessment, Figure 1 - National Indicator 116 –

Proportion of children living in poverty in Leicestershire and England as defined by those children

living in families with a reported income is less than 60% of median income - see

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/personal-tax-credits/cps-la09.xls

Children in families in

receipt of CTC (<60%

median income) or

IS/JSA

% of Children in "Poverty"

Under

16 All Children Under 16 All Children

Blaby 1,710 1,945 10.0% 9.6%

Charnwood 4,110 4,630 15.0% 14.2%

Harborough 1,270 1,430 8.0% 7.7%

Hinckley and Bosworth 2,370 2,680 12.9% 12.4%

Melton 1,000 1,125 11.4% 10.8%

North West Leicestershire 2,505 2,820 14.5% 13.9%

Oadby and Wigston 1,340 1,535 13.8% 13.0%

14,305 16,165 12.2% 11.66%

1.5 For this assessment and strategy our needs assessment has established this

local understanding:

“Child poverty is about the resources available to children and families

and their ability to make choices which help them get the best out of life.

Reducing child poverty is about strengthening the protective factors

such as family income, and how it’s spent, aspiration, good parenting and

childcare, and the importance of good supportive social networks.

It is also about dealing with the risk factors present in complex (or

troubled) families, such as inadequate housing, poor diet, drug and

alcohol misuse, domestic abuse, mental health problems, disability and

lack of transport.”

1.6 This understanding encapsulates why this is a Family Poverty Strategy and

not a Child Poverty Strategy. The resources available, the choices made and

the risk factors present which cause a child to live in poverty take place and

exist within families. Therefore it seems only logical that the solutions to

improving resources, improving and broadening choice, and alleviating risk

factors are rooted within the family. In answering the question ‘what is child

poverty?’ any answer needs to begin that it is a function of family poverty.

2. Our need: How does child

poverty present itself in

Leicestershire?

2.1 To change something, it is necessary to understand it. Before a strategy can

be formed to prevent and tackle child poverty, we need to understand its

causes and symptoms. Underpinning this strategy is Leicestershire’s Child

Poverty Needs Assessment – an assessment based on data, the experience of

frontline workers and experts, and the experiences and opinions of the

county’s children themselves. This assessment draws on existing research, it

is not just ‘another needs assessment’ replicating page after page of tables,

charts and maps.

2.2 The strong vision for our assessment, which feeds through into the strategy,

was to produce something which incorporates the views of staff and

communities using the most relevant data, alongside new, qualitative

research into the views of some key practitioners and a youth-led research

project on child poverty.

What practitioners tell us

2.3 Practitioners – frontline workers and experts - have helped shape this

strategy, revealing what causes child poverty and how it presents itself in

Leicestershire - where it exists, what it means and what can, and is, being

done about it. We interviewed x practitioners in Leicestershire.

What young people tell us

2.4 This strategy is based on what young people in the County think about child

poverty. An innovative youth-led research project on child poverty in

Leicestershire was commissioned to ensure that young people had a genuine

voice in this important area of policy development.

What the data tells us

2.5 The strategy examines existing research undertaken by the County Council

and its strategic partners – such as the Childcare Sufficiency Assessment13

,

the report on Income Deprivation Affecting Children in Leicestershire14

– as it

relates to child poverty. Some additional analysis has been undertaken to

complement this and is published for the first time in our needs assessment.

2.6 Data from the Indices of Deprivation 2010 shows that, relative to other parts

of England, Leicestershire does not experience a high level of income

deprivation affecting children and most parts of the county are amongst the

least deprived areas in the country. Generally, there is very little change in

the areas which experience the highest levels of child poverty. In

Leicestershire these are primarily the urban centres around Loughborough,

Melton Mowbray and South Wigston and Coalville. Over half of children living

in Greenhill North East and Loughborough Warwick way are living in poverty.

This is not acceptable.

13

Leicestershire’s Childcare Sufficiency Assessment can be found at http://www.leics.gov.uk/csa 14

Available from http://www.lsr-

online.org/reports/income_deprivation_affecting_children_in_leicestershire

2.7 There are areas of the County in which real child poverty does exist and this

was strongly emphasised by both practitioners and young people in the

County. Local experience also supports national research which establishes

that where families are living in poverty in otherwise more affluent areas the

repercussions can be even worse.

2.8 In every district in the County there are substantial differences in the lives

children and young people are likely to experience. A person born in certain

parts of one district can expect to live almost a decade longer than someone

born a few miles away. They may live in some of the most deprived areas in

the county, where benefit take-up is very high and attainment is very low.

2.9 Analysis of key data-sets in Leicestershire supports practitioner beliefs that

child poverty is multi-layered and transfers through families from one

generation to another in the same localities. A Leicestershire strategy for

reducing child poverty needs to reflect this complex picture and address a

range of issues including education, training, skills and employment of

children and parents. Young people particularly emphasised the importance

of creating opportunities for people to learn and develop new skills to get,

and keep, a job as a pathway out of poverty (see below & Chapter 4,

paragraphs).

The ability to make choices

“What is the definition of poverty? Is it about choice? If so, disabled children

often lack choice. For example, even if you have enough money to go

swimming, if you can’t get in the pool, or there isn’t a suitable changing

facility, you can’t go in.”

2.10 We understand that child poverty is complex. Social problems, such as

mental health, domestic violence, the state of a house, a poor diet, drug and

alcohol misuse, can lead to feelings of not being able to take control or the

make the most of choices available. It can also be compounded by disability

or, for those living in rural parts of Leicestershire, by a lack of transport.

2.11 In a large rural county like Leicestershire transport invariably features as an

important aspect of child poverty. A family that may not on the surface be

regarded as poor begins to experience severe disadvantages due to the

distance and costs associated with accessing services and opportunities.

2.12 The practitioners suggested that families that have suddenly fallen into

poverty may have developed better skills for coping, enabling them to

improve their situation. Sustained/generational poverty however can lead to

low aspirations and feeling trapped. They may want to do well but feel that

“life circumstances are conspiring against them” and that agencies do not

understand. They often feel overwhelmed by issues, not knowing where to

start to address them.

2.13 Practitioners were very clear that creating opportunities alone is not enough

for many people living in poverty in troubled families. Additional support is

required to change long established low familial aspirations and to support

development of practical skills – managing budgets, completing forms – to

enable those in the least well off families to seize and make the most of those

opportunities available to them (see Chapter 4, paragraphs 4.).

2.14 Aspiration is linked to experience. If a parent is unemployed the

consequences are felt by the whole family. Sustained unemployment whilst

young is damaging, and can lead to lower incomes and poorer labour market

experience even decades later, thus continuing the cycle of poverty for their

families.

2.15 We need to break this cycle - the tendencies for children in care growing up

to be parents of children who are also taken into care; cross generation drug

users; repeating cycles of domestic abuse and violence; intergenerational

worklessness.

Strengthening the Protective Factors

2.16 There are some obstructive elements we can realistically tackle in the county.

There are some we can’t. Incomes are expected to fall. Unemployment is

rising and the level of state benefits is being reduced. Our ability to respond

is being tested by significantly reduced budgets.

2.17 To meet this test, we need to concentrate on where we can have an impact

and on whom we will have most impact; building on those supportive factors

which enable families and children to exit poverty and increase their own

resilience, targeting those people who are in most need of this support.

2.18 Factors such as advice and support around parenting, budgeting and income,

encouraging aspiration, facilitating child care and the provision of supportive

social networks are all tangible things we can do and which will help. What

we have to work with, for example in terms of resources, has been reduced

and this is an issue but it is one which we cannot control. What we can

control are the jobs we do and how we do them.

2.19 The statistics around free school meals are revealing when filtered ethnically.

White British pupils on free school meals do far worse than expected

compared to Non White pupils eligible for free school meals who do better

than expected, which may demonstrate the power of parental aspirations.

Dealing with the risk factors - The needs assessments findings

“There are a lot of negative forces around people in a vulnerable position

which they can find hard to resist”

2.20 There is a thread of intergenerational poverty evident in the quantitative

data/analysis for Leicestershire, backed up by qualitative findings from

practitioners and young people and laid out in this report. A picture emerges

of often chaotic families, struggling to cope, with associated behavioural

problems, leading to exclusions and poorer outcomes for young people,

lower levels of attainment and a clear link with unemployment (see Chapter

5).

2.21 Families living in poverty demonstrate a range of poor health outcomes from

tooth decay to obesity, mental health problems and shorter life expectancy.

The link between parental unemployment, low aspirations and child poverty

suggesting a ‘whole family poverty’ approach is vital (see Chapter 5).

2.22 As we have shown, it is well established that certain groups are likely to be

particularly vulnerable to the negative impacts of growing up in poverty, and

that they exist in significant numbers within Leicestershire, including:

� some Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic groups

� young carers

� unemployed parents & young people

� offenders – young and old

� those with substance misuse & alcohol problems those with

mental health problems

� families with disabled parents/children

� teenage parents

� children in care

Strengthening protective factors and tackling risk factors

2.23 The picture which emerges from this report is that child poverty in

Leicestershire is largely about the resources available to children and families

and their ability to make choices which help them get the best out of life.

2.24 Reducing child poverty is about strengthening the protective factors such as

family income (and how it is spent), aspiration, good parenting and childcare

and supportive social networks. It is also about dealing with the risk factors

present in troubled families suffering from poverty. These include things such

as inadequate housing, poor diet, drug and alcohol misuse, domestic abuse,

mental health problems, disability and lack of transport.

2.25 In order to identify potential recommendations for the strategy, it is useful to

identify the key messages of ‘what we know’:

1. There is a clear and obvious link between child poverty and parental

income but income alone is too simple a measure to provide a true

picture of child poverty in Leicestershire.

2. Children living in poverty in Leicestershire who appear to be at most

risk of experiencing poor outcomes are generally those who live in

families with additional needs which traverse both adult’s and

children’s services.

3. There appears to be a lack of understanding amongst the broader

workforce of the existence of poverty, the potential causes of

poverty, and the consequences of poverty, in terms of impact it may

have on children and families.

4. There is a general consensus amongst the practitioners interviewed as

part of this needs assessment that the interventions required to

alleviate symptoms of poverty and complex need are low key and

simple but must be family-led.

5. Families on low income may not be fully aware of their benefit

entitlement or means of accessing additional support i.e. through

charitable grants.

The findings of the Peer Research Group The young people who led this research were:

• My name's Gracie, I'm seventeen and for the last few years I've taken an

active role in the youth service including helping to lead a BME project,

taking responsibilities in my club after training to be a senior member and

inspecting youth facilities.

• Hi, I’m Xav. I’ve been involved with the youth service, mainly through my

involvement with Hinckley and Bosworth Youth Council and as a member of

CYCLe (County Youth Council, Leicestershire). I’m 15 and still at school.

• My name is Jess and I got involved with the youth service when they invited

me on the senior member training programme to help my volunteering at a

local church group. Since then I’ve been involved in inspecting youth

services and outside agencies and have recently become the young person’s

rep for North West Leicestershire voice work.

• I’m Laura and I’m 16. I used to volunteer at the church youth group and then

went on the senior member training programme to help me with that. I’ve

done the young inspection training and have been involved in inspecting

youth groups.

• My name’s Kev and I’m 16. I’ve been going to local youth groups in my area

for the last couple of years and just started to get involved in voice work by

accident really. I went on the senior member training programme and go to

our locality forum where we have our say on what’s happening in the area.

• I’m Amber. I’m 15 and I’ve been involved with the youth service for about 2

years. This started with taking part in activities and sessions with the young

people in care project, and then I did the senior member training

programme and young inspections.

From our research, our findings show the following:

• Money and benefits alone are not the answer to reducing child poverty,

• The most important thing for young people in poverty is to have the basic

things like food, water, sleep, and then things like family & friendship.

• There is a difference between extreme poverty that you see in Africa and

poverty in Leicestershire but there are children in Leicestershire living in

poverty.

Based on our findings the Peer Research Group recommends that:

• There needs to be more provision and more services for young people that

opens up opportunities for them to develop new skills to find a job and stay

in work.

• A young person’s version of the Leicestershire County Council Child Poverty

strategy/action plan is produced, so that other young people around

Leicestershire can understand what the County Council plans to do about it.

• There is more youth and peer led research done about issues that affect

young people in Leicestershire.

3. Our Strategy: How we will

tackle child poverty

“If we get it right now we’ll see the benefits in maybe 20 years.”

3.1 No matter how complex the causes, no matter how difficult the symptoms,

child poverty has one significant, consistent factor throughout: the child. Any

strategy must start and end with the child and their family. Ours does.

3.2 We provide many services which contribute to a child’s safety, development,

enjoyment and happiness. Playgrounds, parks, leisure centres, children’s

centres, libraries, supported housing, social care, children’s homes, adoption

and fostering services, schools and colleges, all contribute to keeping

children from, and lifting children out of poverty. And these are nothing to

the safety, development, enjoyment, happiness and love families in

Leicestershire provide their children.

3.3 Many families live in poverty in Leicestershire. Many do well and achieve

good outcomes, whether it is a parent finding employment or a child

achieving well in school. Poverty is not permanent and, above all, how

poverty presents itself in most cases does not equate to neglect.

3.4 This strategy aims to ensure the provision of the right kind of advice and

information for the many and support and intervention for the far smaller

numbers of families for whom poverty crosses generations and where there

are more complex needs which require attention. The problem of firmly

rooted poverty that crosses generations is not being alleviated quickly

enough.

3.5 Our work in the last few years developing new approaches to this issue and in

the last few months developing this strategy has led to two conclusions

which form the basis of a new approach to tackling child poverty.

“We need to work with the whole family. We can’t ignore the parents.”

Our approach

To target support to enable more vulnerable Leicestershire families to be

successful through:

• Prevention & early intervention - Helping to improve outcomes for

all families leading to reduced demand for public services

• Earlier Intervention - Targeting support to families at risk of

developing complex needs through earlier intervention

• Integrated Support - Improving outcomes for those that already have

complex needs

Please see Appendix D for a more detailed definition of these terms.

3.6 First, a child’s poverty is an outcome of a family’s poverty. Addressing, for

example, issues around aspiration within a school setting only will have

limited success if these messages aren’t reinforced, or indeed are

contradicted, at home. A healthy, hot school meal supports a balanced diet,

it doesn’t provide one. An intervention managed within the four walls of a

public building, helps; one successfully managed within the four walls of a

home, lasts. This is why you are reading Leicestershire’s Family Poverty

Strategy and not its Child Poverty Strategy. It is our premise that addressing

family poverty is the most enduring way of addressing poverty among

children.

3.7 Second – we need to work better together. It is common sense and an often

said adage but one that has proved elusive so far. Complications in the

system must be managed by providers not users; the public sector, not the

public. We need to ensure our system provides what is needed and those

who need it can access these services or are enabled to do so.

3.8 To achieve this, it is no good co-ordinating services at the point they reach

the frontline with different practices, overlapping responsibilities and little or

no information sharing. To work better together, we need to plan services

together with other providers and above all with citizens and service users.

To plan services together, we need to be able to share our budgets, staff and

buildings.

“It’s very much a sense of you come to us.”

Our approach

To change the culture of public services to provide:

• seamless, integrated services to families with or in danger of having

complex needs

• services designed in partnership with citizens and service users

3.9 If you have little time and no transport, a Children’s Centre just a few miles

away might be of no benefit. If a health visitor can’t offer or signpost

someone to sound financial advice, the next person who does offer any

financial advice may well be a loan shark. A child’s and their family’s needs

are the basis for this strategy and should be in all our work in the future - not

a corporate logo, management chain, job description or inspection regime.

This is why you are reading Leicestershire’s Family Poverty Strategy and not

Leicestershire County Council’s.

3.10 In Leicestershire we are developing and implementing integrated services.

We are supporting a much closer relationship between services and

communities and citizens and service users to improve understanding so that

we can design and deliver services better.

3.11 Different funding and commissioning arrangements are giving localities more

freedom to spend money and design services to meet local need rather than

national requirements.

3.12 For example, we are making the case that national funding that would have

been channelled toward specific work around community safety, drugs

intervention and treatment, training, youth justice, probation, family nurses

and health visitors should be given to Leicestershire as a single resource for

us to determine how services are delivered. Locally, we are exploring how we

can pool more funds which will enable a redesign of services with housing,

health, arts, sports, policing, schools, social care, youth services and cultural

services so services can be designed with partners, citizens and service users.

3.13 The eradication of family poverty sits at the centre of this new approach. The

success of this new imaginative, liberated cross-sector approach will be

measured in its ability to effectively tackle a multi-faceted and often deep-

rooted issue like family poverty.

3.14 We will be supporting this family-based, multi-agency approach across three

key work areas:

• chapter four details how we should develop a family’s capacity to exit or

avoid poverty with an emphasis on prevention and early intervention for

0-6 year olds (not just 0-5) and earlier intervention for all children;

• chapter five details that once an integrated more intensive intervention is

required, it always puts the whole family at the centre;

• chapter six details how the way we work together needs to change; how

we make decisions, use our resources, manage our staff and handle the

information we share no longer hinders but enables a more strategic and

targeted approach to help staff help families help themselves and utilise

the approaches detailed in the previous chapter;

Who is taking the lead

Leicestershire Together will be responsible for the eradication of family poverty in

Leicestershire by 2020.

4. Our model: How we work with

families

“For families in these

situations, the enormity

of their issues can be so

overwhelming that it is

difficult for them to know

where to start, so they

don’t15

.”

“I knew that I needed

help. I asked for it. I feel

that I was more or less

ignored.”16

“..all areas and their

partners can challenge the

way things are currently

done and transform the

way public services are

provided so they more

closely meet the needs of

those communities and

provide better services for

less17

.”

Our aim

To reduce the number of families that need high cost care, support or

intervention by helping them be more self-sufficient and receive

preventative / earlier interventions.

4.1 The experience of the frontline worker who provided the quote above

illustrates the low level of take-up of support services by many people living

in poverty. The outcome is that just because a particular service or

opportunity exists does not mean that people are always able to take

advantage of that opportunity.

4.2 The experience of the families who need to access these services illustrates

why there may be a low take up. Families feel fear and a sense of being

judged when receiving support; a sense of being either ignored or when they

do receive attention, being ‘done to’ rather than ‘for’ and ‘with.’ This

perception needs to change.

4.3 This chapter analyses when and how families access these services. Instead of

working with families when things have or are about to get reach a crisis, we

need to understand their challenges earlier and to provide the right sort of

support earlier.

4.4 We need to focus on earlier intervention, preventing vulnerable families and

individuals from developing complex needs and requiring drastic

interventions. And we need to ensure that that our families with complex

needs get the right support they need which helps them achieve the greater

independence.

15

Page 30, Child Poverty Needs Assessment 16

Page 6, Home Start Family Consultations, July-August 2011, available at

http://www.leicestershiretogether.org/211111_homestart_consultations.pdf 17

Number 10 Website, 12 October 2011

Background

4.5 As public service providers and commissioners in Leicestershire, we are

benefiting from a greater understanding of how we might set about

delivering this change. Leicestershire has been a pilot for working with

families to understand their challenges and to pioneer a new approach.

4.6 Much of the work has centred on working with troubled families who have

complex needs. What represents a complex need? The Social Exclusion

Taskforce identified in 2007 a number of characteristics, which has since

been added to in 2010 and through our own research in Leicestershire.

Five or more of the following characteristics would represent a family with

complex needs

Involvement in crime and ASB Family in debt

No parent in the family is working Poor parenting

Poor quality or overcrowded housing Child behavioural problems

No parent has a qualification Limited support network

Mother has mental health problems Child substance abuse problems

At least one parent has a long

standing and limiting illness or

disability

Truancy, exclusion or low

educational attainment

Family has low income (below 60%

of the median)18

Adult with learning difficulties

Family cannot afford a number of

food and clothing items

Not in education, employment or

training

Child protection issues Communication problems

Domestic violence Child is a carer

Marriage or relationship breakdown Teenage parent(s)

Drugs and/or alcohol misuse

4.7 As mentioned earlier, we estimate that there are 16,165 children in

Leicestershire who live in poor households19

. Initial estimates put the number

of troubled families who have complex needs in Leicestershire at around

1,300 and we are also able to estimate that there are around 2,000 families

at risk from having complex needs. Even with this indicative figure, we can

see among these 3,300 families a significant proportion of the 16,165

children estimated to be living in poverty will be contained. Virtually all the

families with complex needs identified in Leicestershire have a low income.

4.8 Any new approach adopted for families with, or at risk of having, complex

needs will therefore have a significant impact on our overall ability in

18

The official definition of a child in poverty is of child who lives in a house whose income is below

this threshold 19

Page 7, Leicestershire’s Child Poverty Needs Assessment, Figure 1 - National Indicator 116 –

Proportion of children living in poverty in Leicestershire and England – since updated from

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/personal-tax-credits/cps-la09.xls

Leicestershire to reduce the number of families living in poverty in the

county.

What our insight told us

4.9 In addition to the child poverty needs assessment, this strategy is also

informed by the insight developed to form the basis of designing this new

approach. This exercise has, as you’d expect, trawled through the data,

literature and best practice that is available. It has called upon interviews

with practitioners and families; it has mapped individual journeys of people’s

lives and their interactions with the services we provide. An ethnographer

has conducted what he described as a ‘deep hanging out’ exercise with

several families. All have enabled our design to incorporate the lived

‘experience’ of troubled families 20

.

4.11 The emerging findings are particularly instructive. Families perceive the

services they receive to be problem led, not family led and managed to meet

that service provider’s own procedures rather than a families need. There is a

language barrier; professionals speaking professionally, not personally, torn

between befriending and professional responsibilities.

4.12 What a family fears and what a family recognises as helpful highlights the

spiky relationship many have with the state. Families fear the police and

social services; they appreciate school, new housing, and an advocate who

works on their behalf. The relationships between these families and services

are sometimes confrontational and untrusting and although there was an

awareness of the support available, access was confusing and solutions

offered were often provided in isolation of other issues. Families preferred

individuals to systems, where time was given and trust established.

4.13 The consequences of this relationship are that where help is needed it is not

always given and where help is given it is not always effective. This can lead

to an adverse effect of on a person’s aspiration, can mean that long term

physical and mental health remain unresolved and that long term for an

individual becomes intergenerational across a family.

Examples of a new approach producing better outcomes

4.14 We have established a case for change and we are establishing a case for the

kind of change that is required. There are an increasing number of examples

where a different approach has been developed and two are highlighted in

this strategy which have helped us in Leicestershire to develop and design a

new way of working with families.

20

All of these insight reports are available from

http://www.leicestershiretogether.org/index/partnerships/community_budgets-

3/fwcn/insightphase.htm

Working with 1,400 plus families in 15 local authorities

4.15 A nationwide programme launched in 2007 in 15 local authorities and

working with over 1,400 families aimed to develop local responses to the

needs of families who face multiple and complex social, economic, health and

child problems as described above.

4.16 The model is family-led, and builds capacity for families to lead their own

change process. It creates opportunities to support families as they progress

through the programme and into the community. It also supports families to

build their own aspirations for their future leading to individuals seeking

opportunities of employment and gaining new skills.

4.17 The programme called upon the use of a key worker responsible for providing

and coordinating this support. This key worker in turn was supported by a

robust framework of support, normally provided by a multi-disciplinary team

of experts.

4.18 The outcomes were marked. At the beginning of the programme parenting

issues were highlighted as an area of concern in 57% of the 1408 families

monitored – on exit, two thirds of families had recorded significant

improvements. Similarly, school attendance was an issue on entry for 30% of

families. For half of these families, this was no longer an issue on exiting the

project. Improvements were recorded across a number of wide-ranging

outcomes around domestic violence, housing, familial relationships, child

protection, and anti-social behaviour.

Case Study: The Family Intervention Project, Melton

In Melton Mowbray, Laura is a single mother of nine children and is struggling to

bring up her family on benefits. After splitting up with her third partner, Laura was

hit with depression and lost control of the household. Two of her children, Shane

(16) and Ben (14) tell of days spent throwing stones at houses and smashing

windows. The younger Ben admits he was on drugs at the time, but adds he "was a

douche bag".

Her family were the recipients of frequent complaints as a result of her children's

behaviour and so the Family Intervention Project (FIP) stepped in. The government

introduced FIPs in 2006 to deal with families perceived as "lost causes".

Where previously there could be up to 20 services involved with a family, a "FIP"

key worker is put in place to co-ordinate intervention through parenting classes and

funding leisure activities for the kids. Steve, a FIP senior project coordinator

describes their aims: "It’s about getting the balance right. I mean we are not going

in there to parent for her. Ultimately she has to take responsibility for herself and

her family."

He said that without FIP Laura's family would have most '"certainly" been evicted. If

an eviction had occurred that could have cost the government up to a quarter of a

million pounds, whereas a FIP intervention would cost around £60,000.

The family feel they have benefited from the FIP programme with mother Laura

saying: "I think I’m a better mum to my kids that what I was back then. "Over 3,000

families have now been supported by FIP’s. Although the average shows a

reduction in anti-social behaviour, with £125 million spent since 2006, FIP projects

do come at a price.

The average length of intervention is one year, after which the team gradually

withdraw causing concerns for Laura about what happens afterwards: "I’m a bit

worried once they stop working with the family that Shane and Ben are gonna go

back to being rebels and causing havoc." Courtesy of Channel 4 News

4.19 The up front cost for the Family Intervention Project cost described above

was higher than might have normally been provided but the final outcome

makes the financial case. For example, an eviction process can cost up to

£250,000. The 12 month intensive family intervention programme ran in

Melton cost £60,000. There were family intervention projects which

managed, among other outcomes, to avoid an eviction process from taking

place. The saving is stark, the outcome positive. The cost though has

previously been met by a different budget that that which felt the benefit.

This distinction has been a barrier in the past which needs to be removed.

Applying these lessons in Leicestershire

4.20 We have learnt a lot and continue to do so. However, we are now closer to

being ready to implement this learning. There are crucial differences in what

we will attempt in Leicestershire and what has been attempted up to now.

First, scale. Leicestershire will seek to work with thousands of families rather

than 12 families like in Swindon, and across the whole county, not just one

district. Second is funding. There will be reallocation of public resources, but

in addition there will also be an attempt to use the kind of savings illustrated

above as leverage for a social impact bond. These bonds would be acquired

from sources outside of the public sector and could help to remove the gap

between who invests and who benefits from adopting this new approach.

4.21 The model will be based around a dedicated family support team with a lead

family worker, who would advocate and work for and with a family. This

worker would support the family and co-ordinate relevant and required

services, serve as a positive role model and spend more time working with

family members within the home and the community. This worker would

advocate on behalf of the family and would have access to a budget that they

could commission services on behalf of this family. Around this dedicated

worker, some core principles would be put into place in what we offer to

families and how we work together.

Our offer to families How we work together

Support will focus around the whole

family and their priorities and be flexible

and in a language the family understands

Whole family assessments will be

developed

Working with children means working

with their carers and parents

Family teams will require administrative

support

The approach is sustainable by building a

family’s capacity by

• Recognising strengths

• Build self-esteem, skills, relationships

and aspirations

• Develop resilience for families

• Has clear purpose in contacts

Acknowledging that it is ok to go in and

out of support (but not care)

Co located services in each locality

• Local teams will provide local

solutions

• Sensitive to local needs,

opportunities and intelligence

• Local commissioning - linked to

locality partnership groups

Will focus on early years and earlier

intervention

• Building on existing good practice

• Develop stronger links with mental

health

• Develop a greater understanding of

intergenerational parenting

Teams will have high quality and well

trained staff who can

• Maintain a sense of hope

• Share information among

professionals including training and

assessments

Chapter 5 Chapter 6

Recommendation 1 - Developing a family based model

Leicestershire will develop an integrated public and voluntary sector family focussed

services designed around a single Leicestershire Family Model. This model will:

• be sustainable and designed to build a family’s capacity, self-esteem,

aspirations and relationships


• aim to move families nearer to independence from costly public sector

services

This model will be achieved through the following changes to current working

practices

• a dedicated family support team with a lead family worker, who would

advocate and work for and with a family developing a whole family

assessment model


• be provided through a mix of county wide, locality and personalised

commissioning

• be provided with high qualified staff who can maintain a sense of hope

5. Building a family’s capacity to

exit or avoid poverty

Our aim

That Leicestershire’s families have the capacity to provide loving,

affirming attachments, a healthy diet, an active lifestyle and

stimulating learning environments inside and outside the home so

that key transitions such as going to school, college or work are

successfully managed.

5.1 The learning borne out of our insight into families with, or at risk of having,

complex needs will be targeted in a service model which will help these 4000

families, buts its fundamental principles apply to all families. Instead of

waiting to work with families when things have or are about to hit a crisis, we

need to understand their challenges earlier and to provide the right sorts of

support at the right time.

5.2 This chapter maps out how we plan to offer this support to families so that,

ultimately, they can improve their life chances and exit poverty. This includes

the support available for pregnant mothers, for families with children under

5, for families with children of school age, and all the way through to children

about to leave full time education. It begins and ends with how parents and

young people can be enabled to access to work through the provision of

childcare and training and education opportunities post 16.

5.3 Our aim is to enable a family setting to be the environment which allows for

the successful negotiation through key life changes. A family where a parent

is in employment and which is a source of loving, affirming attachments; a

home where a healthy diet, an active lifestyle and learning is encouraged –

combined these can provide a long term sustainable exit out of poverty. For

this to be provided however, a family needs to be able to provide this love,

support and encouragement. This need is only partially but most obviously

met with money and employment.

5.4 The most sustainable and beneficial of all financial exits from poverty lies in

finding work – work is often the best form of welfare. However, there has to

be work to go into and that work has to be flexible so that an employee can

be a parent also. Simply, without growth and new jobs, we will not achieve

our aim of eradicating family poverty. Obviously, this is not a growth strategy

- we are not creating jobs but increasing people’s capacity to get one which

includes enabling individuals to increase their confidence and self-esteem as

well as develop skills.

The threats to a parent’s capacity to provide

5.5 The thrust of benefit reforms is to remove a perceived dependency on the

benefits system. We are not in a position to argue for a specific application of

the benefit system in Leicestershire. Job opportunities are at a premium and

there is increasing evidence that the income of some of the poorest families

in Leicestershire will reduce21

. This will reduce a parent’s capacity to provide

for their family. This predicted drop in income will not be met with an equal

and opposite increase in their capacity to find work which could militate

against this reduction in income. The barriers which have previously

prevented a parent taking a job remain. The most obvious however is putting

yourself in a position to get a job.

Building a parent’s capacity to provide: developing skills, finding work

5.6 There are jobs; and there are people looking for jobs. Obviously during a

recession or a period of limited growth, the number of jobs available

decreases and the number of people looking for work increases. However,

despite the economic climate, in Leicestershire vacancies remain unfilled. As

an area, our councils and businesses are striving to achieve two things: first,

growth across a variety of sectors to deliver more, and a greater variety of,

jobs; second ensuring that people in Leicester and Leicestershire are able to

take advantage of the jobs available to them. This strategy concentrates on

this second task.

The local economic context22

• For most of 2011, the percentage of people in Leicestershire claiming

Job Seekers Allowance was between 3.4% and 3.7% of the adult

population – over 21,000 in the county in total (insert link to LSRO). This

is a minimum as many people who could work and may wish to work are

not eligible for job seekers allowance.

• The area has retained a significant manufacturing base - 14% of the

workforce are employed in the sector compared to 9% nationally.

• Food and drink manufacturing has become increasingly important to our

economy, accounting for approximately 16% of all manufacturing jobs.

• High technology manufacturing in Charnwood, at science parks in

Leicester and Loughborough and at the new Enterprise Zone near

Hinckley will offer opportunities to strengthen high technology

manufacturing in the area.

• Service sector employment has grown over the last decade and is

projected to continue to grow. This includes logistics and transport,

associated with the sub-region’s central location and communication

links, including East Midlands Airport which has a nationally significant

role as an airfreight hub. In 2012, Marks and Spencer are opening their

major e-commerce distribution centre on the East Midlands Distribution

Centre site in Castle Donington, employing hundreds of people.

• The retail sector has also grown in importance, with major retail centres

at Highcross Leicester, Fosse Park and Loughborough.

21

Institute of Fiscal Studies, Page 3

http://www.familyandparenting.org/Resources/FPI/Documents/FPI_IFS_Austerity_Jan_2012.pdf 22

A full breakdown of the allocation of jobs across sectors can be downloaded from

http://www.llep.org.uk/front/key-documents/key-documents/214252

5.7 So, how can we match and meet the needs of those looking to employ and

those looking to be employed? There are three key areas of work which are

being carried out in Leicestershire which are seeking to provide answers to

this question. The first is to help those troubled families with complex needs,

described in Chapter 4, to gain the confidence and skills to seek and gain

employment; the second is the implementation of the government’s new

Work Programme; and the third is the development of a skills plan for

Leicester and Leicestershire.

New approaches to tackling long-term, multigenerational unemployment

5.9 Using the key design principles which inform the county’s approach to

working with troubled families, the Department for Work and Pensions is

seeking to have someone work as part of a Family Support Team specifically

to tackle entrenched worklessness. So for example, local authorities will be

asked to identify families which suffer from long-term and sometimes multi-

generational unemployment. This dedicated support worker will then work

as part of that family’s support team to develop a 12 month action plan to

develop their skills and find a job; this would also include post-employment

support.

5.10 This tailored individual approach will work alongside the Work Programme,

the government’s new approach to tackling unemployment. In Leicestershire,

this will mean staff working within communities, rather than in offices as

now, or with specific families as described above, and seeking to encourage

an active engagement with a team of advisors who will be seeking to help

people find work. This help involves continuously developing an individual

action plan, which includes a referral to one or more programmes which are

designed to remove the barriers which stop people getting or seeking work –

whether these barriers are around physical access or care responsibilities, a

gap in skills, or confidence and resilience.

Recommendation 2 – Building a parent’s capacity to find work

Leicestershire Together will support the further development of

employment programmes designed to tackle long term unemployment,

working to ensure

• the successful application of the Work Programme in the county

• the successful integration of the targeted employment schemes for

families with long term unemployment with both the Work

Programme and the single Leicestershire Family model.

Plugging the skills gap

5.11 These approaches will be complemented by a local skills plan. One key area

identified in the above approaches and by local employers is the need to plug

this gap. The body charged with this responsibility is the Leicester and

Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (LLEP) - a business led partnership

working with local councils and other partners. The LLEP is developing a Skills

Action Plan, which will specifically identify actions for each of the economy’s

different sectors so that this gap can be filled. For example, asking our

schools and colleges to provide qualifications which make students job-ready

across each sector; asking employers to provide work experience

opportunities as part of the Work Programme or more formal, longer term

apprenticeships; or encouraging people to undertake courses where there

are a large number of vacancies such as those which would enable a career in

the hospitality and tourism sector.

Recommendation 3 – Building capacity; giving parents the right skills

The Leicester and Leicestershire Economic Partnership will develop and

implement a Skills Action Plan.

Building a parent’s capacity to provide: childcare, benefits, and financial

advice

5.12 Another barrier to accessing employment opportunities is enabling parents

to understand the benefits of early learning and childcare and then to access

it. Ensuring the provision of sufficient, high quality, sustainable, accessible

and affordable childcare for children under 14 can allow a lone parent to

work and offers support for a two parent family for both to work. In

Leicestershire 99.4% of childcare is deemed outstanding, good or

satisfactory23

and 90% of children under-14 live within half a mile of

childcare. The cost is rising – modestly with most types of childcare –but

noticeably more steeply for preschool playgroups which have increased in

cost by over a third24

.

5.13 Childcare does cost however and this cost has been recognised as a barrier to

a parent accessing work. If, for example, once you have subtracted your

childcare and travel costs from your salary and you are left with less

disposable income than if you had remained receiving benefits, the

disincentive to work is plain. Childcare is most obviously but by no means

exclusively felt by lone parents as a barrier to finding work. For example

families of children under 3 who have disabled children with a special

educational need or complex behaviour issues have greater difficulty

accessing child care.

5.14 A lone parent with a child under 12 has the right to limit the hours that they

are available to work without jeopardising their Jobseekers Allowance. This is

not extended to a parent who may live with another parent whose ability to

work or care for children is severely limited.

5.15 There are various means which attempt to remove this disincentive. For

example, all 3-4 year old children and 2 year old ‘disadvantaged’ children are

entitled to 15 hours per week for 38 weeks a year of free early education

23

Child Poverty Needs Assessment, Page 50 24

As above

entitlement25

. The offer is wider for families with a disabled child or one who

has special educational needs, for whom the entitlement is for an extra 6

hours per week. As well as adding to a parent’s capacity to work it also has

two significant benefits for children. First, early and positive learning

experiences contribute to making a positive start at school. Second, there is

the increased possibility of early identification of additional need, whether

this is related to Special Educational Need, disability or additional support

needs in the family.

5.16 The offer is limited to 15 hours during term times, which very few jobs can

feasibly accommodate. The free provision can support a parent to find work,

and provides financial help to a parent in work, but is best viewed as a means

of preparing a child for school rather than enabling a parent to start to work

– especially as many parents also look after younger siblings. This will change

in September 2012 when the 15 hours of funded provision will be able to

used flexibly (referred to as the stretched offer) across the year but the limits

remain apparent.

5.17 For families with children under 3 there is a wide variety of nursery

provision26

. The provision for disabled children is currently being developed

to offer significantly more places. Provision for disabled children can be

more expensive due to the need for specialist equipment and additional

staffing etc. and as a consequence we have identified a need to develop

means by which service providers can support families with a disabled child

to have greater access to universal provision.

5.18 A significant way in which the disincentive to work is tackled is through the

support available once you have found a job. Ensuring that a parent is aware

of this support is vital.

5.19 The most sustainable means of helping with a parent’s childcare costs is

through the Working Tax Credit which allows a parent to claim back up to

70% of childcare costs. There are also bridging sources of payment such as a

£200 job grant which you receive when you get a job which can help with the

transition costs such as transport and immediate child care. There are also

top up payments for employed parents with the In Work Credit of £40 a week

for lone parents or for all parents which both helps top up income.

5.20 The level of material support for parents looking for work or in work is not

within this strategy’s gift. Ensuring parents in Leicestershire are aware and

access this support is. So, for example ensuring staff are aware of the detail

of the support available – for example the additional free provision a child

with a disability or a special educational need is entitled to. The evidence

from practitioners is very clear – creating opportunities and providing funding

25

The Early Learning and Childcare Service at Leicestershire County Council manage this provision. 26

These are currently commissioned through a voluntary sector provider who commission services for

0-19 year old disabled children

is not always enough. Additional support is required to help take up of

benefits, manage budgets, complete forms – support which is offered at the

JobCentre Plus currently but which could also be usefully provided

elsewhere.

“We need a culture change ‘how to have a difficult conversation within

universal services’ i.e. nursery staff asking families about their financial

difficulties and referring/signposting on appropriately.”27

5.21 Sound financial advice is the most obvious way of supporting a family which

is experiencing poverty. It is the most obvious but can be the least received.

The evidence of frontline workers suggests that this is because there is a

shared awkwardness of those giving and receiving advice rooted in the

stigma attached to poverty.

Building a parent’s capacity to increase their income

Recommendation 4 - Leicestershire Together should support the

development and delivery of a range of community based initiatives for

families (parent and child together) around skills for life.

This should be delivered on a multi-agency basis and include advice and

information on a range of issues including managing on a budget, debt

avoidance, and benefit entitlements etc. These initiatives should also be

freely made available to the public through such routes as internet and

libraries.

Building a family’s capacity: Leicestershire’s Children Centre Programme

and locality partnerships

5.22 One such space where such advice can be given is through the

Leicestershire’s Sure Start Children’s Centre programme. This programme of

support to families is coordinated across a number organisations and

professions – health visitors, GPs, nursery staff, JobCentre Plus advisors,

among others. The Programme is funded at a county level but organised

within each of the county’s seven districts with six locality partnerships.

5.23 Frank Field asserts that the approach to the foundation years, which he

defines as 0-5, must include children’s centre programmes. As we have

stated in our introduction, although poverty is obviously a function of

income, it is not the only means through which an exit from poverty is

achieved in the long term. A family unit is not just there to manage a

contribution to the local economy but it is the foundation for most people’s

happiness.

27

Page 22, Child Poverty Needs Assessment

5.24 Sure Start Children Centre programmes should provide parents with children

under 5 with holistic support and advice on supporting a family and

parenting. Most offer access to a range of support such as breast feeding,

healthy eating, early reading, training and employment advice and also

access to speech and language therapy and financial advice. Our children

centre programmes are not the sole source of support or coordination for

families within a community but they are one means providing a welcoming,

inclusive, socially mixed and non-stigmatising environment and a conduit to

significant change for many families.

5.25 The case study demonstrates how children’s centres can be a source of

significant change. Through a combination of prevention and early help a

range of outcomes for a family were improved. Whereas before a single

outcome - say healthy eating - would be addressed by escalating through the

traditional prevention (education), intervention (school nurse), support

model (dietician). A health visitor can trigger an intervention for one outcome

(in this case housing) which brokered through a children’s centre can then

allow a number of preventative messages (breast feeding), early

interventions (parenting classes) and more targeted interventions (around a

child’s behaviour). It also managed an intervention which impacted the whole

family – not just a parent and a pre school child.

5.26 Already, the children’s centre programme can evidence significant episodes

of ‘regular support’ delivered within ‘workless households’, which are a

children centre's priority group. This work has increased parenting

confidence and we can demonstrate family journeys into formal learning, as a

precursor to employment.

Providing emotional and health support and advice to families

Recommendation 5 Children’s centres and family outreach workers will

continue to support families in accessing a range of targeted services

commissioned to ‘stimulate’ the change needed within and on behalf of a

family to improve outcomes for the family. These will focus on:

• improving parenting confidence, through parenting courses

• improving dietary and exercise habits through healthy eating and

physical activity programmes

Case Study: Removing risk, providing support

How children’s centres can help families

The family

7 people live in a two bedroom second floor flat (Mum, Dad, Uncle, and 4 children

with mum expecting her fifth child). They are not in receipt of benefits as dad

works full time. However, he only earns minimum wage supported by child and

working tax credit. This income supports all 7.

The family had run up a huge debt on school meals, and when packed lunches

were provided they verged on inadequate. The children were also not accessing

after school activities, and the oldest child in particular always seemed tired. They

were referred to children’s centre staff by the Health Visiting Team who

requested support regarding the family’s social and emotional wellbeing. This

triggered a series of actions which helped the family.

The support they received brokered through children’s centre staff

• The local church delivered a Christmas parcel including food and toys.

• The family were assessed to be overcrowded and were awarded extra ‘points’

on the waiting list for a larger property.

• Mum accessed the ‘Incredible Years’ parenting programme to benefit her

parenting of the younger children.

• Mum started to bring her pre-school children to the stay and play activities

and Chatterbox at the children’s centre.

• Support and guidance was given to mum regarding the children’s diet.

• Family STEPS will make an initial visit to manage a child’s behaviour.

• The local ‘relief in need charity’ purchased bunk beds for the family.

• Mum was referred to the Breast Feeding Alliance who will support her once

she gives birth to her fifth child.

• All debtors were informed that the family had sought support and referred

the family to a specialist debt worker at CAB (Citizens Advice).

• Secured agreement from the school that the family could access the

Opportunities Fund. The older children now access after school activities such

as the Brownies.

The outcomes

• The family are virtually at the top of the housing list.

• Mum and Dad feel more confident about their parenting.

• Mum and Dad shop weekly for groceries and prepare fresh family meals.

• Mum now uses natural nappies, and will be breast feeding her new baby.

• The children access extended school facilities and community groups.

• Mum and younger children access the children’s centre activities.

• The families’ debt problems are being in hand.

• The children now receive school meals paid by the opportunities fund.

• Mum looks happy and relieved. Mum reports that Dad is far less stressed

about the debts, and isn’t so ‘grumpy’. The children thrive, the school reports

that they present as happy, articulate children.

Building a family’s capacity: providing stimulating learning environments

outside the home

There is overwhelming evidence that children’s life chances are most heavily

predicated on their development in the first five years of life.

Frank Field

5.27 Children who perform less well at the start of school tend to perform less

well throughout. A good start in life is therefore hugely important. For

example, around 55% of children who are in the bottom 20% at age seven

remain there at age 16 and less than 20% of them move into the top 60%28

.

The graph below illustrates that poorer children systematically do worse on

both cognitive and behavioural outcomes at both age three and age five.

Poorer children tend to be less ready for school.

5.28 Leicestershire recognises that the period before pregnancy, during pregnancy

and for the first years of a child’s life and an adult’s as a parent are

fundamental. These formative years shape a child’s life chances. During these

years, it is primarily parents who shape their children’s outcomes – a healthy

pregnancy, good mental health, and the way that they parent.

5.29 So, for example we have already prioritised work with young children and

families. Providing parenting courses can support a parent or carer form vital

bonds. Encouraging and empowering good dietary and exercise choices with

parents and young children establishes behaviour which becomes ingrained

and avoids the development of detrimental, debilitating, and expensive

conditions like diabetes. This support is offered before pregnancy, during

28

Department for Education internal analysis of the National Pupil Database (see Page 38, The

Foundation Years).

pregnancy and for the first years of a child’s life. For example, there are a

range of early communication and literacy activities that support parents to

understand the importance of a good home learning environment and how

they can promote good language and literacy skills at home29.

5.30 This approach is becoming well established and Leicestershire’s public health

leads have asked government to make local authorities the lead

commissioner of 0-5 services in the county, as opposed to national structures

such as the proposed NHS Commissioning Board. This will allow for the

greater integration of locally designed services.

5.31 Concentrating on the first years of a child’s life is logical as it shapes

behaviour - but it is also tactical. Parents with pre-school children have more

routine contact with public services, from GPs to mid-wives to health visitors

to Children’s centres, a child and their parent can, and many do, have regular

contact with a range of advice, support and networks.

Building a child’s capacity to learn: Improving school readiness

5.32 So, how do we respond to the above assertions about school readiness?

Studies inform us that 50% of children from socially disadvantaged

backgrounds have significant language delay on entry to school30

. There is a

strong link between communication difficulties and low attainment as well as

mental health issues, poor employment or training prospects and crime.

There is also increasing evidence from studies that have claimed that

increasing the physical activity levels of children aged 3-5 can lead to

increased academic achievement and improved cognitive function and better

behaviour31

.

5.33 In Leicestershire the attainment gap has narrowed between the bottom 20%

performing children and the rest, every year for the past 3 years32

. With the

right support, many children with language delay go on to catch up with their

peers, and most persistent disorders can be resolved by the age of five and a

half33

. This support should also include physical activity programmes and

speech and language therapy being targeted at those children’s centres or

through family support workers which deal with the county’s most

disadvantaged neighbourhoods and families.

29 For example the following schemes are being run - Chatterbabies, Chatterbox, Speak-a-Boo,

Bookstart, Wriggly Readers 30

http://www.c4eo.org.uk/themes/earlyintervention/files/early_intervention_grasping_the_nettle_fu

ll_report.pdf 31

Len Almond, British Heart Foundation 32 The gap currently stands at 28.3 points. Leicestershire is in line with the national average of 59% of

children developing well as measured by the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile. 33

Bishop D V M and Adams 1990. A Prospective Study of the Relationship Between Specific Language

Impairment, Phonological Disorders and Reading Retardation, Journal of Child Psychology and

Psychiatry 31

Improved physical and intellectual development of the child

Recommendation 6: Leicestershire’s commissioners should continue to

target speech and language development and physical activity programmes

in children under 5.

Case Study:Family Learning

“Our children begin school well below average in Communication, Language and

Literacy Development and we need our parents educated in the impact they have as their first

educators. The work that they go on to do with their children can put in valuable foundations before

they even begin school. They become more confident and help their children to be more confident and

by raising self esteem we feel that the children have better 'can do' attitudes to learning. We have

many hard to reach families and it is always very rewarding when we get these families on board”

A South Wigston Primary school where a course is held in the summer term for September starters.

Family Learning aims to help parents and carers to be more active in

supporting their children’s learning, including with families with pre-school

children to help parents explore ways of encouraging language development

through fun, practical activities.

In the spring of 2011, 25 partners were contacted, mainly schools, where

there had been substantial Family Literacy, Language and Numeracy (FLLN)

provision (e.g. 20 hours of learning) during the last two years. In 2009 -10

FLLN courses were run at 41 different venues.

Although it is too early to draw conclusions on longer term impact, a survey

of parents indicated very positive responses to the courses with 91% of

parents who participated now more active in the child’s education; 93%

more comfortable visiting schools and talking with teachers about their

child’s education.

Building a family’s capacity: the transition to school

5.34 Comprehensive support for families with children under five is a key focus for

prevention, support and early intervention. However, we feel that based on

the evidence of the practitioners we interviewed, this focus on the

foundation years would usefully extend to the first years at school.

5.35 The transition between early years settings (whether nursery, playgroup or

childminder) and primary school is a major milestone for all families but can

be a time of stress for families experiencing additional difficulties such as

poverty. For example, a parent’s own negative experience of school can

trigger anxiety for both parent and child and begin a process of

disengagement. This can ultimately result in a child’s low attendance and low

aspiration, one of the most significant indicators of a child’s likelihood to do

well at school. There is substantial evidence to suggest that the most

important indicator of future educational outcomes is a parent’s engagement

in the educational process.34

5.36 As well as this anxiety, there is also evidence at the other end of the

spectrum that parents can feel abandoned by the noticeable drop off in

support once a child reaches school age. The first year at school, like the first

five years of life, is a negotiation for all parents and a particularly fraught one

for those experiencing poverty. The relationship between school, teacher,

pupil, and parent is crucial for two reasons; to secure parental engagement

and also to help schools help families.

5.37 The quality and extent of information sharing between early years settings

and schools varies enormously but can have a significant impact on how well

the transition is managed both for child and parents. With stronger links

developed at these easily identifiable transition points more joined up

working could support vulnerable children during this stage. For example,

there are meetings which schools and their feeder early years settings are

invited to35

but not all attend and of course not all children attend a nursery

or child minder.

5.38 Parental relationship breakdown or bereavement can be a trigger for

emotional, educational and financial upheaval. This may occur at any point

during a childhood and for school age children it is likely that the effects will

be most noticeable in a school context. By establishing and developing

communication to support parental engagement at the most obvious point of

transition – starting school –may help establish a supportive relationship

which will be supportive when other, less predicatable changes and

transitions occur.

5.39 The capability and capacity of all staff to manage both this transition as well

as identify, advise and signpost a child or their parent who may have

undergone a significant change in their lives needs to be supported with

continued and further refined training and gudiance for all staff and

integration of working practices.

Managing the transition to school

Recommendation 7: Key staff from a variety of pre-school settings (nurseries,

childminders and children centres) as well as family outreach workers and

early communication support workers, will establish or continue to develop

productive relationships and practices with Early Years Foundation Stage

practitioners in schools in order to help parents manage a good transition into

school– preferably through a greater use of family learning projects.

34

Desforges, C. (2003) The Impact of Parental Involvement, Parental Support and Family Education on

Pupil Achievement and Adjustment: A literature review, DfES Research Report 433.

35 Early Years Foundation Stage Support Group meetings

Families with a disabled parent or child

Our needs assessment has highlighted the clear link between disability and

the higher risk of falling into financial difficulties. This is true both for families

who have a disabled child and families with a disabled parent and emphasises

the need for the whole family approach that this strategy proposes (see

recommendation 1).

All of the strategy’s recommendations should have a positive impact on

families with a disabled member. However there are specific

recommendations which should have a particular impact.

For example, further support can be achieved through ensuring that these

families access the benefits available to them. Children with Special

Educational Needs and Disabilities are able to access an extra 6 hours of

Nursery Education Funding while they are 3 and 4 years of age – parents need

to be aware of this provision at the right time so that they can make full use of

it. Staff need to be aware of this provision (see training recommendation 11).

The training programmes recommended by the strategy will need to include

an understanding of the particular issues a disabled family face. This will allow

the programmes we recommend around financial skills, diet, physical activity

and parental confidence to be of benefit to a family, irrespective of whether a

parent or child has a disability.

We are also asking public sector partners and commissioned providers to

consider how they might be able to help disabled young people or carers into

career opportunities (see recommendations 8&9 below).

Building a young person’s capacity; the transition to adulthood

Our aim

To increase the amount of 16-24 year olds who are participating in

education or employment.

5.40 Many of the young people who contributed to this needs assessment and

strategy may be parents themselves by 2020. To break the intergenerational

cycle of child poverty, we must aim to ensure that young people today have

the skills, confidence and opportunity to enter adulthood able to participate

in and enjoy relationships and work. This is a significant issue. There are 3235

16-24 year olds claming job seekers allowance in Leicestershire and Rutland -

a rise of 20.3% in the last year – compared to a 15.8% national average and

17.9% regional average36

.

5.41 Children in receipt of free school meals are more likely not to be in

employment or education between 16 and 18 years old37

. Continuing in

learning is linked to social and economic benefits. The priority is therefore

relatively clear – to increase the number of 17 and 18 year olds learning. The

Government’s recent Social Mobility Strategy has termed the period between

16 and 24 as the transition years and while this strategy’s emphasis is on

earlier intervention, it is not exclusively.

5.42 A number of new policy measures, still being formulated nationally will have

an impact on Leicestershire’s young people. The new government aims to

increase access to higher education, apprenticeships, and encourage young

people to participate in positive activities such as volunteering. For example

there is a new Work Experience programme where young people receiving

benefit and looking for permanent work can gain work experience to improve

their experience and employability with travel and childcare costs covered38

.

Changes in new policies and funding flows will mean that Leicestershire’s

schools, colleges, universities and the wider public sector will need to

respond to this change.

5.43 For example, Leicestershire’s children have on average £3,888 spent on them

each year. The new Pupil Premium will increase this by £400 or 10% for every

child who qualifies for free school meals in the county. This money will be

given directly to schools with the aim of reducing the disparities experienced

by these children.

5.44 Schools and the local authority need to establish how schools can best take

advantage of the financial freedoms being granted through the move to

academies and the pupil premium. Questions need to be asked of and by

schools as to how this money might be used most effectively by individual

schools and or emerging consortia which are supporting new academies.

5.45 The removal of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) was identified

by some of the young people we spoke with as part of this needs assessment

as a barrier to removing this disparity. Similarly, concerns have been

expressed with the changes to the funding of undergraduate tuition fees.

These changes have included a targeted Bursary fund which replaces the

EMA and is aiming to achieve a wider ring fence for those qualifying for

exemptions from university tuition fees. The desired impact of these changes

may not hit those in most need – those essentially who we count as

experiencing child poverty – but the perception of both policies may well be

36

Unemployment by Constituency, November 2011, House of Commons RESEARCH PAPER 11/74 16

November 2011 37

See Page 39, Leicestershire’s Child Poverty Needs Assessment 38

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/policy/welfare-reform/get-britain-working/#experience

different. Nationally, also, the government are committed to supporting an

additional 60,000 places in further education (16-18) between now and 2015

(this translates crudely to about 750 extras places for Leicestershire).

5.46 The Government is also lending its support to a far wider take-up of

apprenticeships - 360,000 places will be offered government nationally

(4,500 in Leicestershire). Already Leicestershire is benefiting from a scheme

run by the construction company, Caterpillar, with 675 apprenticeships being

recruited over the next three years.

5.47 The proposals around pupil premiums and apprenticeships are still being

refined at a national level, but they will be defined, ultimately, locally - in our

schools and in our workplaces. The fabric of these reforms are designed to

enable decisions to be made away from Whitehall and closer to those who

they will directly affect.

5.48 However, there is a need to ensure that these new opportunities are taken

up, successful and targeted effectively. The city and county’s new Local

Enterprise Partnership – a partnership led by businesses working closely with

local councils and other partners - need to lead on ensuring the take up of

apprenticeships in the county. Partnerships such as those embarked upon

between Caterpillar and a further education college are needed more widely

in the county.

Training opportunities for 16-24 year olds

Recommendation 8: This strategy recommends that through the Leicester

and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership work experience and

apprenticeship opportunities for childern are developed.

These opportunities will be designed by the young people peer research

group alongside private and voluntary sector partners so that they enable a

young person to take up a long term employment or training opportunity

Public Sector Apprenticeships

Young carers aged 16-19 recently did not want to get trapped in what they

perceived to be the cycle of deprivation their families live in. Many really

wanted to attend and attain but felt their life circumstances were conspiring

against them and agencies were not flexible and understanding.

Barnardo’s Carefree for Young Carers

5.49 However, as we adjust and respond to this new climate and the opportunities

these new initatives may offer, those organisations in Leicestershire who are

responsible for spending the public’s money, are in a position to more

directly assist – especially those who we know either do not or can not take

advantage of these opportunities, who will sometimes become ‘trapped into

a cycle of deprivation.’.

5.50 The County Council estimates that there are currently around 350 children in

care in Leicestershire. The council, as Corporate Parents, already pledges39

to

offer opportunities for work experience from the age of 14, one way being

through the provision of a variety of working opportunities or

apprenticeships within the ‘family business’ of the Council itself. This strategy

is currently being revised but we would ask all public sector partners to

consider, similar targeted schemes.

Targeted training opportunities for 16-24 year olds

Recommendation 9: Public service providers are being asked to explore

how work experience opportunites or apprenticeships for young people can

developed and designed which target:

• young carers

• children in care

• disabled children

Building capacity: Providing opportunities as public service commissioners

5.51 The public sector increasingly commissions rather than delivers services. Our

role in the purchasing of services and in developing markets provides an

opportunity to tackle the barriers which prevent equal access to, or take up

of, employment opportunities.

5.52 Public sector commissioners need to develop a viable market strategy

whereby providers would have a stake in developing careers opportunities

for a wide range of vulnerable young people - opportunities which extend

across the private, independent and voluntary sectors. This would allow

contracts issued by the public sector to incorporate a wider and more

inclusive and accessible provision of opportunities.

Targeted training opportunities for 16-24 year olds

Recommendation 10 – Public service commissioners are being asked to

develop strategies whereby so that providers would have a stake in

developing careers opportunities for a wide range of vulnerable young

people - targeting in particular

• young carers



39

http://www.leics.gov.uk/index/social_services/children_young_people/children_looked_after/lac_s

ervices_for/corporate_parenting/pledge.htm

6. Building capacity to help families

help themselves

Our aim

To improve:

• how services are accessed;

• how families are identified who need additional support;

• how staff are managed and trained to do this and provide wider

support;

• how information is shared to help families;

• how information is used to provide insight;

• how key decisions are made about what is provided in a locality.

6.1 Up to now we have suggested how we can improve a family’s capacity to exit

poverty. This chapter details how we can improve the capacity of service

providers and commissioners to help families help themselves.

6.2 From the kind of advice we give to a new mother to the support we offer a

young offender, all our proposals in this strategy require a new approach to

how we work. This includes how we provide access to our services, how we

are able to share information and support staff to identify families which may

need additional support, and how we make the decisions about what

services are provided. For this strategy to work, how we work needs to

change.

Access to our services

6.3 This change began with a review of how services are accessed. Through the

work carried out in Leicestershire through the Total Place and Community

Budget initiatives we know a great deal about services are accessed40

.

40

Page 43, Final Report, Total Place,

http://www.leicestershiretogether.org/total_place_final_report.pdf

6.4 Over 57 million contacts made either face to face through 450 service points,

over the phone across 500 separate phone numbers or via the internet

through over 50 separate sites. The number of access points alone makes the

case that we need to make this access simpler and more effective for people

in Leicestershire. We need to design an approach which allows people to

access the information they want and need more quickly, and the

information provided is more accurate and more comprehensive.

6.5 The aim is to simplify customer access and offer a greater consistency of

support and information leading, ultimately, to a greater satisfaction from

the people accessing these services.

6.6 Whilst it was agreed by the Leicestershire Together Commissioning Executive

that the Access to Services Programme will come to an end in June 2012, a

number of important initiatives have started and will continue. These

include:-

• A whole place view on the use of publicly accessible buildings with a clear

focus on services and customer insight

• Developing a consistent approach to how to define, identify, access and

respond to the needs of the most vulnerable in Leicestershire

• Understanding more clearly the role of the internet in providing access to

services, ensuring that information and the ability to request public

services is available online and is presented in a clear and consistent way.

This will provide 24hr access to services and help to reduce the number of

avoidable telephone calls received by service providers, allowing more

time to be spent on the most important calls.

Improving access to our services

Recommendation 11: Leicestershire supports a new approach to improving

people’s access to our service. This includes finding opportunities for shared

buildings with a wider scope of service offers and a rationalising phone and

internet access points across the public sector.

How we help families help themselves: the capacity of our workforce

[We need] to improve the capability of officers, recruiting for the future –

being clear of the competencies needed to take this wider view within a

profession41

.

6.7 There is a wide range of services available to families with additional support

needs in Leicestershire. Merely providing a service is not enough however. It

is important to ensure such services are well equipped to recognise the

41

Page 21, Leicestershire’s Child Poverty Needs Assessment

impact that poverty might be having on family life – that the stress of poverty

can make an already difficult job much harder.

6.8 It is important that those professionals working with young families receive

appropriate training to understand the full impact that early difficulties might

have. For example a good understanding that young parents are more at risk

of poverty and that this in turn is more likely to have an impact on the early

brain development of their child, and then in turn on their future outcomes.

6.9 To support the model proposed in Chapter 4, there needs to be a workforce

attuned to these connections and the services available to help.

6.10 Leicestershire needs a workforce which is able to recognise and respond to

issues of poverty in a consistent and whole family focused way. This means

that anyone – from the broadest possible workforce – who comes into

contact with families must take on their responsibility to identify families

affected by poverty and respond appropriately. It is equally as important

that adult focused services recognise their clients as parents and can assess

where poverty may be having an impact on a family.

Improving the capacity of our workforce

Recommendation 12: Leicestershire Together should develop and deliver a

training programme for both the adult and children’s workforce, including

staff involved in commissioning, which will encompass issues such as:

• Identifying indicators of poverty

• Understanding the impact of poverty on family life

• Understanding poverty in a local context

• Understanding which groups are more vulnerable to poverty

• Understand difference between poverty and neglect.

• Safeguarding children

Training should also be provided to help frontline workers

• achieve engagement with families (including hard to reach & reluctant to

engage)

• work within families home environment with multiple family members

• undertake effective assessments, which include the identification of

early help requirements, including those where children may be at risk

• be a champion for families but also challenge/support appropriately

• maintain a sense of hope and build on positives with families

• achieve creative solutions to problems

• share information with other practitioners

• be sensitive to the issues and challenges FCN have.

6.11 A more holistic understanding across a broader range of staff will enable a

second necessary change - the development of a more holistic assessment

process. This process would identify those families where the basic

conditions of life may be barriers to effective family functioning – essentially

where there is a more complex need. For example, parents receiving family

support due to child behaviour problems may be unable to put into place

behaviour strategies if they are living in cramped conditions in sub-standard

housing. Until the basic conditions of life are improved the family is unlikely

to be able to move forward. 6.12 A systematic approach is not restricted to staff who just provide direct family

support but should include other service areas as well, such as housing, the

police and adult social care and through schools as well. Whatever single

family assessment framework is put in place to enable this change,

practitioners who are working with families must not lose sight or overlook a

child’s need. The primacy of safeguarding needs to be emphasised to these

workers and the relevant training provided to negate this risk (see previous

recommendation). Where a child has suffered or is likely to suffer significant

harm then the Local Safeguarding Children Board processes must take

precedence.

6.13 This is an approach that would also have to extend to families affected by

domestic violence. There is a clear need for structured and systematic

support to address the issues arising in the aftermath of domestic violence.

This should enable a resettlement in the community so that families affected

by domestic violence can live safely (in the family home or to move away)

and reduce the impact that financial dependence may have on maintaining

violent relationships.

Improving our capacity of our staff to identify need

Recommendation 13: Develop a systematic approach to signposting and

referring families to more targeted and intensive intervention through the

development of a single Family Assessment Framework which incorporates

and preserves the primacy of safeguarding for children.

How we help families help themselves: the information we share

6.14 It has been widely concluded by many that public services need to share

information better. In Leicestershire we are acutely aware of what happens

when this doesn’t happen as it should.

6.15 Recent research with front line staff has demonstrated that there are

significant barriers to sharing information and data within and across

agencies. Without robust operational information and data sharing it is

difficult to get a comprehensive picture of the 'family'; service users have to

‘tell their story’ to public agencies multiple times. This inhibits our ability to

plan and make decisions on early intervention. Risks cannot be properly

assessed. Consequently we only treat symptoms, not causes and we fail to

make the best use of our resources.

6.16 Why does this happen? Staff use ‘informal networks’ rather than robust

operational arrangements in order to share information. There is a lack of

clarity on what needs to be shared and with whom, which manifests itself in a

lack of consistency across agencies in information governance, policy,

training and practice – for example, information is organised according to an

individual rather than family. The perceived risks of sharing information,

founded on legalisation such as the Data Protection Act, crowds out the

benefits of sharing information. Staff have limited time and capacity; some

processes are too de-personalised; there are barriers around professional

discourses, cultures and priorities and sometimes there is not enough trust.

The three graphs highlighted overleaf illustrate this; the information share

with partners is but a tiny fraction of the information we do not even share

internally.

6.17 There are processes in place. The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) is a

key part of delivering frontline services that are integrated and focused

around the needs of children and young people. The CAF is a standardised

approach to conducting an assessment of a child's additional needs. It takes

account of the role of parents, carers and environmental factors on their

development, in deciding how those needs should be met.

6.18 It can be used by practitioners across children's services in England. The CAF

will also help to improve integrated working by promoting coordinated

service provision. It is a process which was widely welcomed and has been

widely used and which we are proposing to further develop (see previous

recommendation).

6.19 Leicestershire is developing an intelligence hub that brings practitioners,

mentors and other key workers together, to share knowledge and

information around family with complex needs, and agree an integrated

approach in their support. The aim is to overcome the barriers described

above with new frameworks that would be applicable in a wide range of

contexts.

6.20 To begin with the initial focus will be to work with the families with complex

needs described in Chapter 4 work as a case study. This will involve

supporting local and national organisations in developing a common set of

arrangements for sharing information about families (aggregated and case

information) that have complex / multiple needs. This should enable

supporting organisations to develop a comprehensive picture of families,

enabling them to plan, safeguard and intervene early with families and

individuals, reducing risk to service users and organisations.

6.21 A core component of this project will be to trial new technologies and data

sharing systems and protocols in Leicestershire to drive the development of a

more dynamic risk assessment process. This would build on the Common

Assessment Framework to help drive the intervention process.

6.22 The aim is to ensure the right choices are being made which prevent people

falling through service gaps, and service eligibility gaps. This will help the

development of a list of risk triggers and life events for existing families with

complex needs, in order to identify the appropriate point to offer services to

improve outcomes.

Information sharing

Recommendation 14 Leicestershire should establish:

• A single information governance framework for localities that builds on

systems already in place (eg children’s centres)

• An information and data framework for identifying families with complex /

multiple needs and those working with the families, including:

• A blueprint operational design for ensuring appropriate information is

shared when an agency is contacted

How we make decisions: turning information into insight

6.23 There is information and there is insight. Information sharing will be used to

prompt a referral and this is vital (see previous section). Better information

will also help people access the right services (see previous section). Insight,

however, will help determine what intervention might prove most effective

and may also help identify how we might be able to reach people who are

not accessing services.

6.24 In support of the work being developed around improving access to our

services, Leicestershire is pioneering a new approach to developing this

insight. It is a more challenging way of working that is dependent on joint

working and collaboration. There already exist many frameworks,

methodologies and techniques (both quantitative and qualitative) that help

create customer insight. In Leicestershire we are seeking to adapt these to

provide a single, step-by- step outline of how to go about improving our

insight into people’s needs.

6.25 This insight will be used to inform how we design services, identifying key

points for a person where there are opportunities for our services to be

better integrated and more effectively designed. For example, when a

person is faced with a significant change in their life –for example, a parent

losing their job – when that parent approaches the job centre, the advice

provided or made available shouldn’t just concern benefits and potential job

opportunities.

6.26 This is an approach which provides all public service providers with an

increased level of insight into what will enable their service to improve; and

more importantly, how this service could help improve outcomes for the

people they are providing the service for.

Improving customer insight

Recommendation 15 Leicestershire supports a new approach to improving

our insight into how, when and where people access our services. This

includes exploring and supporting opportunities for:

• Applying this methodology as broadly as possible across the public

sector

• Sharing research resources to support this process

How we make decisions: the voice of service users

6.27 Establishing this insight includes the responsibility to listen, involve and

respond to children, young people and their families in order to make

services better tailored to their needs. Involving families can provide fresh

perspectives and new ideas to service delivery. This needs to extend to how

decisions are made about what services are provided across the county, in a

locality and for a family.

6.28 At a county level in Leicestershire the need to listen and respond to the voice

of families in the decisions we make needs to have a wide application. To this

end, we would recommend that this application is also clear and influential.

Voice of the User

Recommendation 16 Leicestershire Together should have in place a

strategy to ensure that the voice of service users is heard through

planning and commissioning processes, through to service delivery. All

partner organisations should have clear routes and expectations for

involvement and consultation.

6.28 Leicestershire’s six locality partnerships (which cover the county’s seven

districts) commission services locally with money allocated at county level.

The services provided in these localities include the services provided

through the children centre programme. These services programmes are

designed and shaped in response to the needs of the local communities they

serve and are targeted at all children not just 0-5 year olds. The people that

decide what is provided in a locality needs to reflect this community and

should include the following:

Extending the reach of locality partnerships in districts

Recommendation 17 Children’s centre’s are for 0-5 years. However the

partnerships that support them also have a responsibility and need to be

explicit that they are focusing on achieving outcomes for 0-19 year olds,

not just 0-5 year olds. We will work toward developing an integrated,

locality commissioning model to ensure that this occurs.

The commissioning of children’s centre services

Recommendation 18 – Who makes the decisions about how a children’s

centre works needs to expand to include parents, local GPs and housing

providers.

6.29 One implication of the model proposed in Chapter 4 would be that the

identified family support workers for Leicestershire’s most in need 4000

families could have a commissioning budget of their own. If implemented,

along side the above recommendations, a far greater extent of the money

spent on services in the county would be influenced by those who it is being

spent on at county, locality and individual family level.

Understanding the impact of poverty in our planning and commissioning

decisions

6.30 Insight is developed to inform a decision about what service is provided – a

decision which will become better informed and more open and accessible.

As demonstrated in the breadth of services that tackle the results of poverty

in this strategy, a considerable percentage of decisions made about what

services are provided and how they are provided will impact on families

experiencing poverty. As such, in Leicestershire we need to build into how we

make decisions a means of ensuring that these impacts are fully considered

before any decision is made.

Equality Impact Assessments

Recommendation 19 Poverty should be considered within all Equality

Impact Assessments that are conducted, which should also consider the

impact of access to services for low income families in rural areas.

Appendix A

National Policy Context The Child Poverty Act (2010)

The Child Poverty Act received royal assent on 25 March 2010 and placed duties on

local authorities and wider ‘delivery partners’ in England to work together to tackle

child poverty, conduct a local needs assessment, produce a child poverty strategy

and take child poverty into account in the production and revision of their

sustainable communities strategies. These actions, led by local authorities, will

contribute towards meeting four challenging national child poverty targets.

The coalition government’s approach to child poverty

The Child Poverty Act and the commitment to ending child poverty by 2020 secured

cross-party support. The Conservative – Liberal Democrat coalition has pledged to

maintain the 2020 aspiration and retain the duties of local authorities, however, the

coalition government will not issue formal statutory guidance or regulations on the

production of local child poverty needs assessments. This is an opportunity for

partners to develop a local response to child poverty and gives us the flexibility to

widen the scope beyond children to family poverty in Leicestershire.

National child poverty strategy (2011)

Launched in March 2011, ‘A New Approach to Child Poverty: Tackling the Causes of

Disadvantage and Transforming Families Lives’ sets out the government’s approach

to tackling poverty for this parliament and up to 2020.

At the heart of the strategy are the aims of strengthening families, encouraging

responsibility, promoting work, guaranteeing fairness and providing support to the

most vulnerable. The national strategy focuses on improving the life chances of the

most disadvantaged children, and sits alongside the government’s broader strategy

to improve social mobility.

At the heart of the strategy are the aims of strengthening families, encouraging

responsibility, promoting work, guaranteeing fairness and providing support to the

most vulnerable. The national strategy focuses on improving the life chances of the

most disadvantaged children, and sits alongside the government’s broader strategy

to improve social mobility.

The national strategy sets out a three year plan for tackling child poverty from 2011-

14.

Key elements include:

• an approach to measurement: tracking improvements in the headline

measures set out in the strategy; monitoring underlying behaviours and

trends; and developing new measures.

• aligning the government’s approach on child poverty with work on social

mobility and social justice.

• working with local and national partners and devolved administrations.

Child poverty targets for 2020:

• Relative poverty - to reduce the proportion of children who live in relative

low income (in families with income below 60% of median) to less than 30%.

• Combined low income and material deprivation - to reduce the proportion

of children who live in material deprivation and have a low income to less

than 5%.

• Persistent poverty - to reduce the proportion of children that experience

relative poverty, with the specific target being set at a later date.

• Absolute poverty - to reduce the proportion of children who live below an

income threshold fixed in real terms to less than 5%.

Social Mobility Strategy

Improving social mobility is the principal goal of the government’s social policy. In

March 2011 the Deputy Prime Minister launched ‘Opening Doors, Breaking Barriers:

A Strategy for Social Mobility’ linked to child poverty through the establishment of a

National Child Poverty and Social Mobility Commission. The strategy sets out leading

indicators of success in improving social mobility for each life stage and areas of

responsibility, placing a new requirement on all government departments to

consider the impact of policies on social mobility. The commission will continue

research into the impact of government policies on social mobility.

Reviews of poverty and life chances

A wide range of policy reforms and reviews, addressing and making

recommendations on issues as diverse as transport, mental health, disability

services, skills and school curriculums, have influenced the child poverty agenda.

In December 2010 Frank Field published his findings from an independent review on

poverty and life chances. ‘The Foundation Years, Preventing Poor Children Becoming

Poor Adults’ sets out two overarching recommendations:

• Establishing a new data set of Better Life Chance indicators.

• Establishing the foundation years to cover the period from pregnancy to

five years as ‘the first pillar of a tri-partite education system’.

The Graham Allen MP interim review on early intervention published in January

2011, reported that early intervention is an approach that can offer lasting

improvements to children’s lives, limit many persistent social problems and stop

them passing from one generation to the next, and ultimately make long-term

savings in public spending.

Early recommendations from the ‘The Tickell Review - The Early Years: Foundations

for life, health and learning’ suggests early years practitioners give particular focus

to three prime areas of learning and development: communication and language;

personal, social and emotional development and physical development.

The Munro Review of Child Protection: Final Report, a child-centred system’ was

published in May 2011. Professor Munro’s analysis finds that local areas should have

more freedom to design their own child protection services and that a one-size-fits-

all approach to child protection is preventing local areas from focusing on the needs

of the child. Interim reports highlighted the importance of having multiagency

services based in the community to help keep children safe and support their

wellbeing, identifying the children and families most in need and giving them help as

early as possible.

The Marmot review of 2010, ‘Fair Society - Healthy Lives’, reported on the

disproportionate impact of health for those living in deprivation.Action was

recommended for six specific areas:

• Give every child the best start in life.

• Enable all children, young people and adults to maximise their capabilities

and have control over their lives.

• Create fair employment and good work for all.

• Ensure a healthy standard of living for all.

• Create and develop healthy and sustainable places and communities.

• Strengthen the role and impact of ill-health prevention.

The wider context

The coalition government has set out its vision for radical reform of the welfare

sector; the key objective is to achieve significant savings to the welfare budget by

reducing existing benefit and tax credit support and ensuring that work pays. Given

the central role of income in family poverty, any reductions in funding and state

reforms will inevitably affect those on low incomes.

Key reforms likely to impact family poverty:

Increased benefit conditionality

• Lone parents claiming Income Support will shift to Jobseekers Allowance

automatically as their youngest child reaches full time education age (currently

age seven, but this will reduce to five).

• Incapacity benefits customers will undergo a Work Capacity Assessment to

determine their future benefit entitlement. Those assessed fully capable of work

can make a claim for Jobseekers Allowance.

Incentives to work

• A new single Work Programme, commissioned by the Department for Work and

Pensions (DWP) will be delivered by the private and third sector from June 2011,

combining all provision for long term Jobseekers Allowance.

• The Universal Credit will be introduced from October 2013. It is intended to

simplify the benefits system and make work pay. It will incorporate both in and

out of work benefits.

Housing Benefit

• Restriction of a maximum household size to four bedrooms and caps on the

amount of Housing Benefit a household can receive.

• Reductions will have a significant impact on the unemployed or low paid who

rely on Housing Benefit to pay their rent.

Skills

• Conditionality of free adult education will impact on the low paid and those on

inactive benefits (e.g. lone parents).

• The end of the Educational Maintenance Allowance reduces the support to

young people going into full time education. A new bursary fund targeted

towards those young people who most need support to enable them to continue

education has been announced.

Appendix B

Organisations consulted in development of needs assessment and

strategy The following organisations and partnerships were interviewed and/or consulted as

part of the Child Poverty Needs Assessment and during the development of the

Family Poverty Strategy.

Banardo’s Care Free for Young Carers

Blaby & Oadby Locality Partnership Group

Centre for Fun and Families

Charnwood Locality Partnership Group

Children’s centre: Locality Management Network

Children and Young People’s Substance Misuse Services

Common Assessment Framework Team

Community Budget Project Board

Disabled Children’s Service

Extended Schools Cluster Coordinator (NWL)

Family Intervention Project

Harborough Locality Partnership Group

Health Visitors: Locality Management Team

Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council (Housing and Community)

HMYOI & RC Glen Parva

Housing and Community Services, Blaby District

Leicestershire Adult Mental Health Services

Leicestershire Child Mental Health Services

Leicestershire County Council Children and Young People Services Management

Conference

Leicestershire Partnership Trust

Locality Support Services (behaviour support in schools)

Melton Children’s Centre Programme

Parenting Early Intervention Project

Probation Service

Strengthening Families Team, Specialist Services

Welfare Rights

Youth Inclusion Support Panel (Youth Offending Service)

Youth Service

Appendix C

Our aim, our approach and our recommendations

Our aim It is our aim to eradicate child poverty in Leicestershire by 2020. It is our premise that this is best achieved through addressing family

poverty.

Our approach To target support to enable more vulnerable Leicestershire families to be successful through:

• Prevention & early intervention - Helping to improve outcomes for all families leading to reduced demand for public services

• Earlier Intervention - Targeting support to families at risk of developing complex needs through earlier intervention

• Integrated Support - Improving outcomes for those that already have complex needs


• seamless, integrated services to families with or in danger of having complex needs



Leicestershire Together will be responsible for the eradication of child poverty in Leicestershire by 2020.

Our aim It is our aim to eradicate child poverty in Leicestershire by 2020. It is our premise that this is best achieved through addressing family

poverty.

Our approach To target support to enable more vulnerable Leicestershire families to be successful through:

• Prevention & early intervention - Helping to improve outcomes for all families leading to reduced demand for public services

• Earlier Intervention - Targeting support to families at risk of developing complex needs through earlier intervention

• Integrated Support - Improving outcomes for those that already have complex needs


• seamless, integrated services to families with or in danger of having complex needs



Leicestershire Together will be responsible for the eradication of child poverty in Leicestershire by 2020.

Chapter 4 – How we work with families

Our aim

To reduce the number of families that need high cost care, support or intervention by helping them be more self-sufficient and receive

preventative / earlier interventions.

Recommendation 1 Lead Partnership

Leicestershire will develop an integrated public and voluntary sector family focussed services designed

around a single Leicestershire Family Model. This model will:

• be flexible to the family’s need and priorities


• be sustainable, designed to build a family’s capacity, self-esteem, aspirations and relationships

This model will be achieved through the following changes to current working practices

• employing a dedicated family support worker with a case load that would not exceed 12 families

• developing a whole family assessment model


• be provided through a mix of county wide, locality and personalised commissioning

• be provided with high qualified staff who can maintain a sense of hope

The Troubled Families

Commissioning Board and

Executive will be responsible for

the implementation of this

recommendation.

Chapter 5 – Increasing a family’s capacity to exit or avoid poverty

Our aim

That Leicestershire’s children are ready and able to manage the transition into school having had enjoyed loving, affirming attachments, a

healthy diet, active lifestyle and stimulating learning environments inside and outside the home.

Recommendation Lead Partnership

Recommendation 2 – Building a parent’s capacity to find work

Leicestershire Together will support the further development of employment programmes designed to

tackle long term unemployment, working to ensure

a. the successful application of the Work Programme in the county

b. the successful integration of the targeted employment schemes for families with long term

unemployment with both the Work Programme and the single Leicestershire Family model.

a. The Leicester and

Leicestershire Economic

Partnership will be

responsible for the delivery

of this recommendation.

b. The Troubled Families


Executive will be responsible

for the implementation of

this recommendation.

Recommendation 3 – Building capacity; giving parents the right skills

The Leicester and Leicestershire Economic Partnership will develop and implement a Skills Action Plan.

The Leicester and Leicestershire

Economic Partnership will be

responsible for the delivery of

this recommendation.

Recommendation 4 - Building a parent’s capacity to increase their income

Leicestershire Together, the Children and Young People’s Commissioning Board and its six supporting

locality partnerships should support the development and delivery of a range of community based

initiatives for families (parent and child together) around skills for life.

The county’s Children and Young

People’s Board and the

emerging integrated

commissioning arrangements in

This should be delivered on a multi-agency basis and include advice and information on a range of issues

including managing on a budget, debt avoidance, and benefit entitlements etc. These initiatives should also

be freely made available to the public through such routes as the internet and libraries.

localities will plan and co-

ordinate the delivery of this

recommendation.

Recommendation 5 - Providing emotional and health support and advice to families

Children’s centres and family outreach workers will continue to support families in accessing a range of

targeted services commissioned to ‘stimulate’ the change needed within and on behalf of a family to

improve outcomes for the family. These will focus on:

• improving parenting confidence, through parenting courses

• improving dietary and exercise habits through healthy eating and physical activity programmes

The emerging integrated




recommendation.


Recommendation 6 - Improved physical and intellectual development of the child

Leicestershire’s commissioners should continue to target speech and language development and physical

activity programmes in children under 5.

The emerging integrated




recommendation.

Recommendation 7 - Managing the transition to school

Key staff from a variety of pre-school settings (nurseries, childminders and children centres) as well as

family outreach workers and early communication support workers, will establish or continue to develop

productive relationships and practices with Early Years Foundation Stage practitioners in schools in order to

help parents manage a good transition into school– preferably through a greater use of family learning

projects.

Leicestershire’s Children and

Young People Commissioning

Board will oversee this

implementation of this

recommendation.

Our aim

To increase the amount of 16-24 year olds who are participating in education or employment, because they are ready and able to manage

this transition having had enjoyed loving, affirming attachments, a healthy diet, an active lifestyle and stimulating learning environments

inside and outside the home.


Reccomendation 8 - Training opportunities for 16-24 year olds

This strategy asks that through Leicester and Leicestershire’s Local Enterprise Partnership work experience

and apprenticeship opportunities for children are developed.

These opportunities will be designed by the young people peer research group alongside private and

voluntary sector partners so that they enable a young person to take up a long term employment or training

opportunity.

Leicester and Leicestershire’s

Local Enterprise Partnership will

be responsible for securing more

apprenticeships for

Leicestershire’s young people.

Reccomendation 9 - Targeted training opportunities for 16-24 year olds

Public service providers are being asked to explore how work experience opportunites or apprenticeships

for young people can developed and designed which target:

• young carers



Recommendation 10 - Targeted training opportunities for 16-24 year olds

Public service commissioners are being asked to develop strategies whereby providers would have a stake in

developing careers opportunities for a wide range of vulnerable young people - targeting in particular

• young carers



Leicestershire Together will be

asked to consider the

implementation of these

recommendations.

Chapter 6 – Improving our capacity to help families help themselves

Our aim

To improve how services are accessed; how families are identified who need additional support; how staff are managed and trained to do

this and provide wider support; how information is shared to help families; how information is used to provide insight; how key decisions

are made about what is provided in a locality.


Recommendation 11 - Improving access to our services

Leicestershire supports a new approach to improving people’s access to our service. This includes finding

opportunities for:

• Shared buildings with a wider scope of service offers.

• Rationalising phone and internet access points across the public sector

The Community Budget

Programme Board which has a

multi-disciplinary membership,

will manage the implementation

of these recommendations.

Recommendation 12 - Improving the capacity of our workforce

Leicestershire Together should develop and deliver a training programme for both the adult and children’s

workforce, including staff involved in commissioning, which will encompass issues such as:

• Identifying indicators of poverty

• Understanding the impact of poverty on family life

• Understanding poverty in a local context

• Understanding which groups are more vulnerable to poverty

• Understand difference between poverty and neglect.

• Safeguarding children

This recommendation will be

overseen by Leicestershire

Together, supported by

Troubled Families


Executive with support from the

Leicestershire and Rutland Local

Safeguarding Children Board.

Training should also be provided to help frontline workers

• achieve engagement with families (including hard to reach & reluctant to engage)

• work within families home environment with multiple family members

• undertake effective assessments, which include the identification of early help requirements, including

those where children may be at risk

• be a champion for families but also challenge/support appropriately

• maintain a sense of hope and build on positives with families

• achieve creative solutions to problems

• share information with other practitioners

• be sensitive to the issues and challenges FCN have..

•

Recommendation 13 - Improving our capacity of our staff to identify need

Develop a systematic approach to signposting and referring families to more targeted and intensive

intervention through the development of a single Family Assessment Framework which incorporates and

preserves the primacy of safeguarding for children.

Recommendation 14 - Information sharing

Leicestershire should establish:

• A single information governance framework for localities that builds on systems already in place

• An information and data framework for identifying families with complex / multiple needs and those

working with the families, including:

• A blueprint operational design for ensuring appropriate information is shared when an agency is

contacted

The Troubled Families


Executive will be responsible for

the implementation of these

recommendations with support

from the Leicestershire and

Rutland Local Safeguarding

Children Board.

Recommendation 15 - Improving customer insight

Leicestershire supports a new approach to improving our insight into how, when and where people access

our services. This includes exploring and supporting opportunities for:

• Applying this methodology as broadly as possible across the public sector



implementation of these

recommendations.

• Sharing research resources to support this process

Recommendation 16 - Voice of the User

Leicestershire Together should have in place a strategy to ensure that the voice of service users is heard

through planning and commissioning processes, through to service delivery. All partner organisations

should have clear routes and expectations for involvement and consultation.




recommendation.

Recommendation 17 - Extending the reach of locality partnerships in districts

Children’s centre’s are for 0-5 years. However the partnerships that support them also have a

responsibility and need to be explicit that they are focusing on achieving outcomes for 0-19 year olds, not

just 0-5 year olds. We will work toward developing an integrated, locality commissioning model to ensure

that this occurs.

Recommendation 18 – Locality Commissioning

Who makes the decisions about how a children’s centre works needs to expand to include parents, local

GPs and housing providers.

The county’s Children and Young

People’s Board and the

emerging integrated




recommendation.

Recommendation 19 - Poverty as part of equality impact assessments

Poverty should be considered within all Equality Impact Assessments that are conducted, which should also

consider the impact of access to services for low income families in rural areas.




recommendation.

Appendix D

Definition of ‘Prevention’; ‘Early Intervention’; ‘Integrated

Intervention’; ‘Specialist Intervention’

‘Prevention: so that problems don’t arise in the first place’

Prevention is the removal or reduction of identified risk factors which may have a

negative impact on a child’s outcomes, and the provision of quality population wide

services such as health and education which have a preventative nature.

Examples of preventative activities could include:

• Reinforcement of alcohol licensing laws

• Provision of accessible information and advice on a wide range of subjects

(i.e. positive parenting and discipline, child safety, road safety, on-line safety,

bullying)

• Equality and ease of access to primary health care for example,

immunisations, child development reviews, contraceptive services;

• Provision of leisure, play, recreation and sporting facilities

• Provision of community activities for children and adults

• Provision of safe and productive education environments

• School curriculum which promotes positive relationships and emotional

wellbeing.

‘Early Intervention: so that problems are nipped in the bud’

Early Intervention is the provision of services which aim to reduce or slow down

identified problems, or identified risk factors, and increase the resilience of those

families by building on protective factors. Early intervention will draw on evidence

based practice which supports specific time-limited interventions, and will include

signposting and referral to other appropriate early intervention services, for example

housing support services. The aim of early intervention services is to ensure that

children, young people and families have their needs met at the lowest possible level

of service.

Examples of early intervention activities could include:

• Provision of group work in a school where there have been concerns around

behaviour in the local community

• Supporting a young person to access youth service provision

‘Integrated intervention: so that something is in place for needs or problems that

are serious or will endure’

Integrated intervention is the provision of coordinated multi-agency services for

families who have a range of difficulties which may span both child and adult

services. The level of need experienced by these families will include those on the

cusp of Specialist Services involvement, or ‘stepping down’ from Specialist Service

involvement, through to those who have been unable to have their needs met

through early intervention and preventative approaches and require further input.

Integrated intervention draws on evidence based practice and will incorporate a mix

of time-limited and more intensive interventions. Integrated intervention services

aim to support families to increase their own resilience and have their needs met at

the lowest possible level of service.

Examples of integrated intervention activities could include

• multi-agency meetings around a family requiring coordinated input from

adult and children’s services

• Developing a package of support for a family ‘stepping down’ from Specialist

Services

Specialist Intervention is the provision of essential services to promote and

safeguard the welfare of children and young people who have been assessed as

being ‘in need’ as defined by the Children Act 1989.The core activity of specialist

intervention is to work with the most vulnerable children and young people,

safeguarding and protecting them from abuse and in so doing complying with the

statutory duties of the Local Authority. Specialist intervention involves working in

partnership with families, communities, other public service agencies and the

independent sector. Interventions may be time limited or long term, depending on

the levels and complexity of children’s needs.

Appendix E

Family Poverty Basket of Indicators

We will know we have made a positive difference on the outcomes of troubled families

when:

• The number of children living safely at home increases

• The number of high end interventions falls (i.e., ASBOs, injunctions, crimes)

• Attendance rates at schools increases

• The number of families evicted falls

• The number of homeless families falls

• The number of families with complex needs falls.

We will know we have made a positive difference to a family’s skills for life when

• The number of workless households falls

• The number of unfilled vacancies falls

• Infant mortality rates and low birth weight figures improve.

• The number of new mums starting and continuing to breastfeed increases.


• The attainment gap closes between children receiving free school meals and their

peers (based on achieving Key Stage 4 – five A*-C including English and maths and

achieving Level 3 at age 19).

• The percentage of young people in education, employment and training increases.

• The percentage of people from the care system are in education and employment at

the age of 19 increases.


• The number of families who live in poverty falls.