The Family Hubs Network was mentioned in the King’s New Year’s Honours List 2024 when our Director and co-founder, Dr Samantha Callan, was awarded an OBE for services to victims of domestic abuse. Following her earlier work at the Centre for Social Justice, ‘Beyond Violence: Breaking Cycles of Domestic Abuse’, the Government commissioned her to […]

On 2 February 2023 the government published a new vision to transform children’ssocial care: ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love: Implementation strategy’, along with an accompanying consultation. This report, published in September 2023, summarises the consultation findings, and the government’s response to them. Their ultimate goal is to implement ambitious reforms across the children’s social care […]

This annual report marks the tenth anniversary of Supporting Families, (originally launched as the Troubled Families programme in 2012), which has evolved to become a crucial element of the early help system across England. The Supporting Families programme has already supported over 650,000 vulnerable families, and with it’s overall funding now reaching £695m, their goal […]

This week saw the launch of a new interim report on the state of the nation by the Centre for Social Justice: ‘Two Nations – The State of Poverty in the UK’. It is the first stage of a process being carried out by the Social Justice Commission, to investigate and consider solutions to address […]

With so many services being provided from a Family Hub, it is important to think about how to ensure families at all ages and stages feel welcomed and comfortable. For example, young people often don’t want to attend a space where the décor is particularly geared towards Early Years, or that their parents would go. […]

This report presents the findings of a joint study the Local Government Association (LGA) carried out with Coram, looking at how approaches to setting up Family Hubs varies from place to place, and the difference these have been able to make to individual families. They spoke to six local authorities – Salford, Cornwall, Lincolnshire & […]

David Johnston, Minister for Children and Families, is joining the panel at FHN’s Conservative Party Conference fringe event on Monday 2nd October ‘Joining the dots to strengthen families in tough times’ will make the case for further development of Family Hubs models to help families coping with difficulties including the long-term impact of the pandemic […]

Unless local Family Hubs’ networks of people, places and services involve the local voluntary sector, achieving effectiveness and sustainability will be an impossible challenge. In fact, for many local authority employees, the task to explore this is a welcome opportunity as well as a necessity. We spoke to LJ Woodward, Head of Service, Early Years […]

Image credit: BBC News 9 Feb 2023 Earlier today, Rishi Sunak was in St Austell, visiting one of Cornwall’s 23 Family Hubs. As over half of England’s local authorities work intensively on Family Hub implementation, it is a welcome moment to see the Prime Minister raising awareness of this area of family policy, which aims […]

Therapeutic Fostering plays a vital role in supporting traumatised and disadvantaged children, however finding the right setting for this work is crucial. We met with Kim Kitney, Children’s Champion on one of Medway Council’s Therapeutic Fostering Teams, to hear about her work, and how Family Hubs are part of the solution. Therapeutic Foster Care Kim […]