Issue - meetings

To receive a report from the Head of Communities and Governance updating Members on the latest developments with the Early Help Services (formerly the Troubled Families Programme).

The Group had before it a report * from the Head of Communities and Governance updating Members on the latest developments with the Early Help Services (formerly the Troubled Families Programme).

The Community Development and Regeneration Manager outlined the contents of the report, explaining that The Troubled Families Programme was set up by Central Government in 2011 to ‘turn around’ the lives of ‘the most troubled families’ in Britain. The three-year funded programme was extended in 2014 for a further 2 years with the intention that the ‘new approach’ should be mainstreamed as part of the preventative services available to support children and families in need.

In Devon over the last two years, the Troubled Families Programme had evolved into ‘Early Help’. Early Help described a range of multi-agency support services offered to children, young people and families in response to their emerging needs.  ‘Early Help’ aimed to prevent the multiple and often complex needs of families escalating to a degree where they required more expensive specialist support or legal intervention. In this way the service had the dual objectives of protecting children and of reducing the costs of multiple interventions.

Discussion took place regarding;

·         The occasional need to share personal information in instances where there were safeguarding concerns;

·         The intention that working together could prevent vulnerable children ‘slipping through the net’;

·         The reduction in cost, which had been higher in the first few years due to the initial cost of setting up and reviewing services.

It was RECOMMENDED that Cabinet approve the Working Practice Agreement for the sharing of information to support Early Help Provision.

(Proposed by the Chairman)

Note:- * Report previously circulated and attached to Minutes.