Donna Molloy

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Supporting parenting and families
Donna Molloy Families At Risk Division DCSF
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Effective parenting improves outcomes for
children

• Effective parenting can protect against the risks
  of growing up poor or in a deprived
  neighbourhood, and reduce the likelihood of
  anti-social behaviour and crime
• Impacts on educational attainment are
  particularly well documented
• Parental interest in education is four times more
  important than SES factors in influencing
  attainment at 16
• Parental involvement has a bigger impact on
  attainment at 7 11 than the quality of the
  school
• Strong rationale for government intervention to
  support those parents who are struggling
• And to challenge parents who are unable or
  unwilling to meet these responsibilities

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Family can also be a source of risk
Parental drug misuse

• Parental problem drug use associated with
  neglect, poverty, physical or emotional abuse,
  separation and exposure to criminal behaviour
• 2-3 of children have a parent misusing Class A
  drugs

• Alcohol misuse identified as a factor in 50 of
  all child protection cases
• 1.3m children live with parents who misuse
  alcohol

Alcohol misuse

• 25 children witnessing domestic violence have
  serious social and behavioural problems
• Estimates suggest at least 240,000 children
  exposed to DV

Domestic violence

• 63 of boys with convicted fathers go on to be
  convicted themselves
• children of prisoners have 3 times the risk for
  mental health problems or delinquent behaviour
  compared to their peers
• 162,000 children had a parent in prison (2005),
  55 of female offenders have a child under
  16hildr

Parental offending
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A small minority of families experience multiple
disadvantages
Percentage of families with children experiencing
5 or more disadvantages
2.2
2.1
2
2
1.9

2001
2002
2003
2004
2005

• Basket of indicators of disadvantages includes
• No parent in the family is in work
• Family lives in poor quality or overcrowded
  housing
• No parent has any qualifications
• Mother has mental health problems
• At least one parent has a long-standing limiting
  illness, disability or infirmity
• Family has low income (below 60 median)
• Family cannot afford a number of food and
  clothing items

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...With lasting consequences for the life chances
of their children
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Significant investment in parenting and family
support

• Providing a ring fenced grant (2009-2011) for all
  authorities to
• Implement Think Family reforms to local
  authority and health service systems and
  services
• Offer Parenting Early Intervention Programmes
  (PEIPs) to help mothers and fathers of children
  (aged 8-13) at risk of poor outcomes improve
  their parenting skills
• Continue to fund Parenting Experts and
  Practitioners in all authorities and
• Set up Youth Crime Family Intervention Projects
  (FIPs) to provide intensive support to families
  in the greatest difficulty.

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Funding for parenting support
Parenting

• Parenting Early Intervention Programme
• 18 pilots 2006-2008 shown to be a success
• All LAs to receive PEIP funding in 2009
• Increasing focus on risk factors associated with
  youth crime
• Parenting Experts and Practitioners
• 77 areas targeting the parents of children and
  young people involved in or at risk of ASB
• 34m Childrens plan commitment to build on this
  with 2 Parenting advisers in every local
  authority

• Impact of 18 PEIP pilots
• Almost halved the number of parents who
  classified their children as having significant
  behavioural difficulties
• Parents reported included being calmer with their
  children, more confident in parenting, and giving
  more time to talking and listening to their
  children.

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What is think family ?
Think Family

• a series of changes to LA services and systems
  to
• ensure that all services working with vulnerable
  children, young people and adults consider the
  family context and
• Identify families which are at risk and provide
  support at the earliest opportunity
• Meet the full-range of needs within each family
  they are supporting
• Developing services which can respond effectively
  to the most challenging families
• Strengthen the ability of family members to
  provide care and support to each other

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Think family builds on all of the levels of
reform set out in the Every Child Matters onion
Think Family
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And for the most risky families we need the
family intervention project model
Family Intervention Projects

• A dedicated key worker with low caseloads who
  works intensively with the whole family
• Taking a whole family perspective to assessment
  and the development of support packages
• Use of a contract setting out the changes that
  are expected, the support that will be provided
  and possible consequences if changes are not made
• The use of persistent and assertive working
  methods
• Effective multi agency arrangements (referrals
  panel, information sharing, agreeing the
  objectives of intervention etc)

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Recent evaluation shows the effectiveness of the
model in tackling risk factors in families
Family Intervention Projects
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Expansion of Family Intervention Projects to all
local authorities
Family Intervention Projects

• 65 Projects aimed at families involved in
  persistent ASB
• New projects - tackling child poverty and inter
  generational worklessness
• Youth Crime Action Plan announced projects in
  every area as part of efforts to tackle youth
  crime

Number of Family Intervention Projects 2006-11
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Where do we need to get to?
A integrated and appropriate service response to
all families at risk

• Joined up FIP type provision sufficient to meet
  the needs of the most extreme families (whatever
  their combinations of problems)

High
Medium

• Wider availability of evidence based parenting
  programmes to support families when risks emerge
  

Low

• Early parenting and family support

• Underpinning all this changes in attitudes,
  culture and behaviour at local level and on the
  front line to identify and intervene early with
  all families at risk