On 10 January Ed Miliband and Beverley Hughes launched a new approach to local services to improve support for the most disadvantaged families and prevent problems passing down from excluded parents to their children.
The Think Family report – published by the Social Exclusion Task Force in the Cabinet Office – will ensure adult services support whole families not just individuals, and announces a £16m programme of local pilots, to be led by the Department for Children, Schools and Families.
A ‘think family’ approach encourages local services to adopt the following basic principles:
- No wrong door – contact with any service offers an open door into a system of joined-up support, eg a probation officer or housing officer identifies the adult language difficulties of a client and refers them to English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) training;
- Look at the whole family – services working with both adults and children take into account family circumstances and responsibilities, eg an alcohol treatment service combines treatment with parenting classes while supervised childcare is provided for the children;
- Provide support tailored to need – tailored and family-centred packages of support are offered to all families at risk, eg a Family Intervention Project works with a family to agree a package of support best suited to their situation;
- Build on family strengths – practitioners work in partnerships with families recognising and promoting resilience and helping then to build their capabilities, eg family group conferencing is used to empower a family to negotiate their own solution to a problem.
Further information and complete news release text is available on the Cabinet Office Website
