Issue - items at meetings - Integrated Families: Update

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Issue - meetings

Integrated Families: Update

Meeting: 23/07/2013 - Health & Wellbeing Overview & Scrutiny Committee (Item 86)

86 Integrated Families: Update pdf icon PDF 187 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

86.1    Mr Barton presented an update to HWOSC members on the Stronger Families, Stronger Communities (SFSC) work that was taking place. He gave a summary of the SFSC work, explaining the priorities that the project worked with. Mr Barton said that the team was now fully staffed. It was also working closely with the community and voluntary sector, commissioning the CRi project to work with 45 families.

 

SFSC was working with 232 families at present (although there had been an anticipated 292 familiies). They had closed down 19 family interventions, mainly due to the work having had a positive impact on the family.

 

86.2    Mr Barton said that the project was working to try and improve the links between Children’s Services and Adult Social Care as these had been fractured in the past. He and his team were learning a lot about the different thresholds in the various services which meant that they could understand the decisions better.

 

86.3    There were cost savings attached to every family in the project, looking at costs that are not being spent by those services not being needed, eg less police call outs.

 

86.4    Mr Barton then answered members’ questions.

 

86.5         Members asked why the project had not engaged with the predicted level of families so far.

 

Mr Barton said that there had been a challenge in establishing an effective team and working well with the voluntary sector. They now have a very committed and energetic team of staff. It was key that the project worked appropriately with the families rather than promising easy solutions.  He was confident that they would catch up on the numbers in due course.

 

86.6    Members asked how often family coaches saw the families that they were working with. Mr Barton said that it varied for each family, but the most intensive programme was for a worker to be with the family for nine hours per week.

 

86.7    Members asked whether ‘managed moves’ were included in the school exclusion statistics as many schools chose not to exclude pupils. Mr Barton said that the nationally set criteria could not be formally adjusted but they were able to include pupils who had treatment ‘equivalent to exclusion’ as determined by the head teacher.

 

86.8    Members queried how the projected savings could be turned into cashable savings. Mr Barton agreed that this was a very hard part of the project but that the figures were a combination of those set nationally and some set locally.

 

86.9    The Chair concluded that it was clear that there was a general level of support for the SFSC work and thanked Mr Barton for his frank approach to the challenges that the team faced.

 

 


 


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