To consider a presentation from the Corporate Director of Children’s Services.

The Director of Early Help and Children's Social Care and the Director Education Standards, Quality and Performance went over the highlights of the presentation circulated within the agenda pack. The presentation covered what family help was, what the Greater Manchester (GM) early help principles were, and the main elements of the Family Hubs including a brief description of what they were, the principles they were based upon, and Trafford’s ambitions for Family Hubs.

[Note Councillor Zhi joined the meeting at 18:45.]

The Committee’s attention was then drawn to implementation timeline for the Trafford Team Together (TTT) programme which included a pilot scheme, a design phase, leading to a full scale roll out. The Committee were then provided with an overview of the TTT programme and the role it would play within Trafford’s approach to family support. The overview covered the intended outcomes of the TTT, feedback received from the pilot schemes, and details of how the work had already impacted service delivery. The Committee were informed that the family hubs and TTT would be key elements of the Council’s future family support offer.

Following the presentation Councillor Acton asked how the family hubs would develop going forward. The Director Education Standards, Quality and Performance responded that Trafford had two family hubs so far and that an appointment would be made for an officer to drive the work forward, especially with regards to the digital offer.

Councillor Acton noted that family hubs were similar to children’s centres but with a greater amount of collaboration and expressed his interest in seeing how the hubs developed. In response to Councillor Acton the Corporate Director of Children’s Services spoke of the unique approach Trafford was taking to delivering the work. The support received from schools and third sector providers had helped the service to move forward with family hubs in the area, but the complexity of delivering the work collaboratively presented a large challenge.

Councillor Procter noted the presentation did not include information about formal evaluation for the family hubs or TTT. The Councillor raised concerns that if the programme did not have evaluation data from the start as well as the end of the programme the service would not be able to measure the impact of the work they had done. Councillor Procter welcomed the positive feedback the programme had received but stated that it needed to be backed up by formal evaluation. The Corporate Director of Children’s Services assured Councillor Procter that there were evaluation tools being used as part of the TTT and work was underway to appoint a Department for Education (DfE) evaluator to review the programme. As part of the continued evaluation of the programme the Council were co-creating assessment tools with partners to ensure they were suitable. The Committee were asked to note that the Council did have a range of measures for early years and school readiness of young people in place including the Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQs). Some of the data sat with health services and the Council were working with those partners to ensure there would be a good level of information available for comparison in later evaluations.

Councillor Hornby asked how the programme would be funded. The Corporate Director of Children’s Services explained that the programmes would transform and re-invest existing resources to deliver services in a new way. However, the Council would continue to look for opportunities to bid for additional funding. The Director Education Standards, Quality and Performance added that due to the overall level of affluence within the borough Trafford were unlikely to receive additional funding without applying for it and assured the Committee that the team would be looking for opportunities.

Councillor Blackburn asked how the staff within each hub would be managed. The Corporate Director of Children’s Services responded it was difficult to say how the staff would be managed as each of the hubs was designed to meet the needs of the communities and so it would be different in each area.  The Corporate Director of Children’s Services added that the feedback from internal review of the TTT had been very positive with the adaptability of the model and the involvement of a wide range of partners.

Councillor Welton asked for a description of the pathway for families to access the service and if a diagram of the pathway was available. The Corporate Director of Children’s Services responded that there were multiple ways for families to be referred into the service as Trafford were moving away from a standard linear approach to access the service, which made it difficult to represent in a diagram.

Councillor Welton asked how long cases were generally open for. The Corporate Director of Children’s Services spoke about how the service was moving towards talking about children and families rather than cases. The Director of Early Help and Children's Social Care responded that when contacted the service looked at the needs of the child and their family to determine who would work with the family to deliver the most appropriate support for an initial 12-week period. Following that 12-week period a review was held to decide what, if any, further support was needed.

Councillor Maitland asked what the Council’s team looked like. The Corporate Director of Children’s Services responded that one of the key aspects of the model was looking at the skill mix within teams to ensure that they met the needs of users. As part of that work a skills gap had been identified around substance misuse which would be addressed with support from some of the Councils third sector partners who had expertise in that area. The Council’s approach was no longer about having a set number of social workers but having a diverse range of people and skills available that were able to adapt to the needs of service users.

Councillor Maitland asked what the new position leading programme would look like. The Director Education Standards, Quality and Performance stated that position would require a high level of skills due to the seniority of the role and a wide range of skills due to the varied approach taken within the programme.

Councillor Procter sent a link to the Department of Health Questionnaire to all in attendance and noted a study which showed that intervening at a very early stage saved society hundreds of thousands overtime. The Corporate Director of Children’s Services agreed with the points raised by Councillor Procter and confirmed that the service was working to capture the types of savings mentioned within the study.

RESOLVED: That the presentation be noted.