What can we learn from the Troubled Families programme

in England?

Rhian Stone

Charlotte Waite

SOLAS

Cymorth Homeless Symposium

October 14th 2015

TF arose from family Intervention Projects

Family Intervention projects: 2007-2011 under

Blair’s respect agenda

NCH model intensive family engagement

“Set up to work with some of the most troubled

and challenging families to tackle ASB, Youth

Crime, Intergenerational disadvantage and

worklessness, homlessness”

Profile – disadvantage

64% lone families

88% white

51% - 3+ children under 18

3/4 workless households

32% 1+ child SEN

67% poor parenting

32% Domestic Violence

30% child protection

Successful outcomes

Duration – 11months; 9 hours a week

– 12,850 families

– Reductions in;

– ASB -60%

– Crime -65%

– Drug misuse – 50%

– Alcohol- 55%

– Truancy/exclusion- 57%

Troubled families launched - 2011

• New coalition government

• Response to the riots

• Language changes – more punitive

“these families are the source of a large proportion of problems in society. Drug addiction. Alcohol abuse. Crime. A culture of disruption and irresponsibility that cascades down the generations ....a small number of families costs an extraordinary amount of money. Last year £9 billion spent on 120,000”

David Cameron

What is a Troubled Family?

• Are involved in youth crime or ASB

• Children truanting regularly/ not in school

• An adult on ‘out of work benefits’

• High costs for the tax payer

152 top tier authorities

448 million

120,000 families

Payment by results

£4000 per family – proportion paid upfront

Results

105,671 turned around

Saving tax payer 1.2 billion

90% LAS achieved their results

Learning for us in Wales

Intensive family engagement models work – how

can we make this happen without huge

government investment?

Serious criticisms of the payment by results

approach and outcomes reported

Easily applied to Wales with creative thinking and

agency buy in – especially housing

Troubled Families

• “a culture of disruption and irresponsibility that cascades through generations” (David Cameron)

ASB –the national context

• Police recorded incidents of ASB have shown

year on year declines from 3.2. million incidents

in 2010/2011 to 2 million end March 2015

• 28% of adults indicated they had personally

experienced or witnessed ASB problems in the

year ending March 2015

• ASB is still a significant issue impacting on

individuals and communities.

The SOLAS Enhanced Support Team was established

in 2010 in South East Wales: to reduce anti social

behaviour in households were the behaviour was so

challenging that the family were at risk of either losing

their home and/or children were at risk of being

accommodated by the local authority.

We work with the hardest to reach families who currently

cost statutory services huge amounts in agency time,

care and criminal proceedings, police call outs,

evictions, legal proceedings etc. If problems are

unaddressed the cost to agencies of long term

intergenerational problems is on such a scale

it’s hard to quantify.

The Housing (Wales) Act 2014

• The main objective of the law is to ensure people

who are homeless or facing homelessness

receive help as early as possible. It places a duty

on local authorities to work with people who are

at risk of losing their home within 56 days to help

find a solution to their problems. It is hoped the

new provisions will prevent 3 out of 4 people at

risk of homelessness from losing their home.

The Housing (Wales) Act 2014

• Everything must be done to avoid an unplanned

move from adequate accommodation and to

ensure people can act in a planned way to

improve their housing circumstances.

• The prevention agenda is not new: Wales

achieved a small reduction in homelessness

levels since 2012, despite adverse housing

market conditions and welfare benefit changes.

CURRENT FUNDERS

The service is a joint Charter Housing and SOLAS project and is currently funded by a mixture of local authorities and social landlords.

(MHA, Charter, Monmouth and Newport)

Newport is using it’s ‘prevention’ money to pilot the impact of this work.

What Solas Enhanced Support does:

• Stay as long as is needed

• Work with everyone in the house and the neighbours

• Work with all issues or ‘find a man who can!’

• Integrate services

Drawing on:

Freedom Programme ,Motivational Interviewing

Anger management, Solution Focussed Brief Therapy, Restorative Approaches

Parenting Programmes, mentoring

WHAT WE DO....

• Home management skills

• Budgeting, benefits and debt support and advice

• Setting up daily routines

• Supporting regular school attendance – and support

for children in the school setting

• Parenting Skills, family relationships

• Support to attend meetings

• Building confidence and self-esteem

• Positive changes to drug and alcohol use

• Help and advice on employment and training

• Bring in or help access other expertise

What impact do we have?

Cost effectiveness: Enhanced Support

delivers strong value for money generating

savings of at least £1.17 million over 3 year

(2010 – 2013)

(Cordis Bright, 2013)

Area of saving What these savings include Amount saved

Successful tenancies for 14

families at risk of

homelessness/ eviction

Staff and legal costs, security, rent

loss, repairs and re-letting. Housing

partners incur these costs.

£140,856 in total

(£10,061 per

family)

12 of 16 households

disengaged from antisocial

behaviour

Police time , Youth Offending Service

involvement and court appearances

£201,696

(£16,808 per

child)

The cost effectiveness of this service was evaluated independently by

Cordis Bright in 2013. Below we have illustrated the main conclusions in

relation to cost-savings:

OUTCOMES FOR AGENCIES

• Reduction in visits, call outs etc

• Reduction or elimination of rent arrears

• Regular feedback on progress with the ability to

‘nip problems in the bud’

• Improved liaison between agencies

• Improved family relationships

• Improved neighbour relationships

• Families leading more structured and productive

lives

Outcomes from Caerphilly:

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Familys facing eviction

warnings or final warnings given

Familys involved in ASB

Police interveniton

Neighbour complaints

Before Interveniton

After Intervention

NEET FAMILIES:

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Problems attending education

Employment Social service Involvement

debt concerns

Before Intervention

After interveniton

Complexity of the issues:

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Physical health issues

mental health issues Domestic violence substance misuse

Before interveniton

After Intervention

Domestic Abuse: ASB?

1 in 4 women experience domestic abuse

1 in 6 men

1 in 3 children open to social service have DA

3 in 4 children living in abusive households have witnessed abuse or been victims themselves

Police called 27 times to Daniel Pelka’s home

WHO: Globally DA kills more woman aged 19-44 than cancer, motor vehicles or war

HOUSING IS IDEALLY PLACED TO IDENTIFY,

RECOGNISE & PREVENT DA IN THEIR

PROPERTIES

FAMILIAL DOMESTIC ABUSE

• Perpetrator programs are seen as a key

intervention

• Educating perpetrators about the

consequences of their actions,

challenging them to accept

responsibility and assisting them to

seek help in changing their behaviour,

are seen as vitally important

strategies to avert further offending.

FAMILIAL DOMESTIC ABUSE

• All opportunities for engaging with

perpetrators must be pursued in the

hope that high rates of re-offending may

potentially be reduced.

• Recidivism can be influenced not only

by policing, sentencing practices etc,

but also by the quality of interactions

and integration between offenders

and the community.

Meet a family

Family with long standing involvement with social services, now in a temporary home

2 older teenage boys, 13 year old daughter

Substance misuse, neighbour complaints, rent

arrears, poor state of property,

13 year old NEET

Meet a family

Work:

Helped facilitate move from temporary home

Systemic work – working on the relationships in the home

Work with 13 year old & mother most effective

School involvement

Perpetrator work with three children.

Meet a family

Outcomes:

Settled accommodation (being adapted)

13 year old in full time education

No further police call outs or neighbour complaints

Key Lessons

Whole family

Tenacity and flexibility

Integration

Locally specialised

Timely interventions

Prevention can be intensive

Co-production

Housing can make a difference

Solas Enhances Support makes a

difference:

Our model of working with a multi skilled staff team

significantly reduces the need for ongoing involvement of

other services.

However the main cost effectiveness is demonstrated

by the significant change in the direction of the families’

futures, preventing their problems escalating and

reducing the burden on publicly funded services

at a time of increasing cost pressures.

(Cordis Bright)