Reports

We need a Budget for Families on March 6th: Parents don’t think the Government is on their side, Family Hubs Network polling finds 

Publisher:

Family Hubs Network

Publication Date:

18th February 2024

Summary:

Over a third of the public (35 per cent) say cutting taxes for families should be priority for the Chancellor as 60% believe cost-of-living crisis has hit families with children hardest. This number rises to three quarters of young people aged 18-25, with very recent or ongoing experience of their parents’ financial challenges. 

Quote “Our polling shows many families are struggling not just with the cost of living but with our tax system which takes away too much hard-earned cash from them if there is only one earner, or the other partner earns very little. Current child benefit rules are especially punitive to many such families. Anomalies like this have been repeatedly highlighted and there is now strong public appetite for reform which the Government must ignore no longer.” Dr Samantha Callan OBE, FHN Director

The implementation of Family Hubs: Emerging strategies for success

Publisher:

Local Government Association - based on joint research with Coram

Publication Date:

17th July 2023

Summary:

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 & York who received some government funding, and Essex and Stockton-on-Tees, who did not. The key lessons have been collated in this report, and highlight the importance of:

– strong cross-sector partnerships

– research & planning to ensure design & delivery of services to best meet needs

– Family Hubs acting as a ‘one-stop shop’, ensuring services are accessible to all through co-location and integration

– managing resources effectively

– establishing ongoing research and assessment of the impact of Family Hubs and an evidence base of best practice going forward

Quote Overall, there is a high degree of energy and enthusiasm about family hubs from council officers. They see the value of the hubs, and all councils are making great strides towards developing and improving their services, whether they received additional funding through the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme or not.

Children’s Social Care: Stable Homes, Built on Love consultation response

Publisher:

Department for Education

Publication Date:

September 2023

Summary:

On 2 February 2023 the government published a new vision to transform children’s
social 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 system, guided by the unique insights shared by those who have personal experience of it.

The Stable Homes, Built on Love strategy focuses on the importance of love and stability as fundamental foundations for both children and adults to flourish. Family Hubs provide families with easy access to integrated early help and prevention services, with a focus on strengthening relationships and providing the right support at the right time in each unique situation.

The government is committed to investing in key areas for all families, and have already announced over £1billion for programmes to improve early help services, including delivering on Family Hubs and helping families facing multiple-disadvantage through the Supporting Families programme, and Holiday Activities and Food programme. The NHS is also investing additional funding in children and young people’s mental health.

Quote Government has invested heavily in place-based planning and delivery of joined up family services and is committed to implementing the Family Hub model. We will use the pathfinder programme to explore and test how the family help system and the local family hub network – where they are established or being established – can be fully integrated as part of the wider support and protection offer for families.

Ten Years of Supporting Families: Annual report of the Supporting Families programme 2022-2023

Publisher:

Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities

Publication Date:

8 March 2023

Summary:

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 is to work with 300,000 families between 2022-2025. The keys to the success of the programme are whole family working within a context of more integrated, accessible services. By focusing on targeted early help, the need for more costly and complicated statutory interventions is reduced. This report highlights the importance of joining up services, and already Family Hubs are places through which many families are able to access the Supporting Families programme.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/640769598fa8f527f84301a6/Supporting_Families_Annual_Report_2023.pdf: Ten Years of Supporting Families: Annual report of the Supporting Families programme 2022-2023

Quote Recently, we have worked closely with the Department for Education on their development of Family Hubs policy...This continued join up across government will ensure we can keep pushing to deliver better, more connected services for vulnerable families across the country.

Independent review of the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) response to domestic abuse

Publisher:

Department for Work & Pensions

Publication Date:

February 2023

Summary:

Dr Samantha Callan OBE, Co-founder and Director of Family Hubs Network, was commissioned by the government to conduct an independent review to assess the current framework of CMS operational policies and procedures that are intended to provide support and assistance to customers experiencing domestic abuse. Here you can read the Callan Report, in which she made 10 key recommendations that included:

  • Preventing the CMS being deliberately used as a form of coercion and control (for example, by withholding maintenance or making deliberately erratic payments).
  • Doing more to ensure child maintenance liabilities for low-income paying parents are affordable.
  • Including both parents’ income in child maintenance calculations.

She also emphasised the need to integrate early intervention with the CMS, so parents are helped to avoid or resolve entrenched conflict at an early stage. Family Hubs have a key role in providing this support and linking it to services to tackle debt, mental health, housing and other problems often faced by separating families, in which at least a third of all children live.

Quote If more effective forms of referral and inter-connection were developed between CMS and Family Hubs, this would ensure separated parents have access to support to prevent conflict escalating and help facilitate circumstances that are conducive to stable maintenance arrangements.

Leading and delivering early childhood services: 10 insights from 20 places across England and Wales 

Publisher:

Early Intervention Foundation

Publication Date:

February 2022

Summary:

The EIF’s new report consists of ten insights on early childhood services, using evidence gathered in twenty places across England and Wales. Among these insights are the importance of multi-agency working, the challenge of data sharing, and the role communities can have in co-designing and driving change. In each of these areas Family Hubs have an important role to play, particularly now they are a statutory service with government funding – some of which is ringfenced for data-sharing improvements. The report also recommends certain features of effective local multi-agency planning, relevant to local authorities in the early stages of Family Hub implementation. 

Quote [Family Hubs] improve access to help and support for families, strengthen the connection between different services, and prioritise relationships and family strengths.