Focus on family help welcomed but we must be clear on what it means for staff, says children’s services boss
Published by Professional Social Work magazine, 10 August, 2022
More clarity is needed on the workforce implications of a rollout of “family help” by policymakers, a children’s social services leader warned.
Steve Crocker, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), said there was a danger of family support being viewed as the solution for everything.
Making family help teams available in every area was a key recommendation of England’s Independent Review of Children’s Social Care published earlier this year.
The autumn budget announced £82 million to create 75 ‘family hubs’ as part of £500 million to support children and families.
These act as ‘one-stop shops’ to “ensure families are able to access a range of important support services, helping them to keep their children safe and healthy” a recent government blog described social workers as “central to overcoming the challenges we face in children’s social care”.
But speaking at the ADCS annual conference in July, Crocker said: I've heard that family support and early help is the solution to school attendance issues, growing mental health pressures (in the NHS)… child-first policing… anti-social behaviour.
“There is a real risk that every part of the system sees a solution in the family support space.
“There are significant workforce implications if family help, like family hubs, is to be everything to everyone.
“I’m not saying that we don’t do it - we can all see that the root causes can be helped by early intervention, but let's have a proper conversation about what it is that we are asking our workforce to do, why, with what evidence base and, critically, who funds it.”
Mr Crocker called on the government to provide additional investment in children and families, adding: “We also need government to allow us to use the money we currently have to better effect.Year-on-year we are stripping services back to fit the shrinking financial envelope rather than developing to meet the ever changing needs that are present in our communities
“This is just storing up problems for the future and we are teetering on a financial cliff edge.”
The government is working with the Anna Freud National Centre for Family Hubs to ensure investment in family hubs is practice-led, evidence-based and informed by families’ own experience.