At Walsall, the families first pathfinder is about constantly asking the question, ‘what is the right thing here for the child?’
This forms the heart of the families first programme – making sure the right decisions are made for children and families, and systems and processes are shaped around them, as opposed to fitting them into current systems and ways of working. Families first means designing and delivering services which have children, families and their experiences at the centre.
Families first for children is a core part of the Department for Education’s Stable Homes, Built on Love agenda to reform children’s services, and Walsall Council has been named as one of the pathfinders trialling the programme.
Walsall is at the start of its journey as a pathfinder and is about to launch the families first programme. This is seen across Walsall Council’s children’s services and its safeguarding partnership as an opportunity to innovate, and commit to doing things differently in ways that are best for children and families. It means focusing on meeting the needs of children, parents and carers at the earliest possible point, and where this will be most likely to help create change.
Families first is also about working with and building the wider family and community networks around a family, as they are the people who are around when professionals are not. For this to work, there have to be strong partnerships: providing multi-agency help delivered by the right professionals connected with local services, from places families will visit, including schools, community centres and family hubs.
To achieve this vision, Walsall has set out to deliver:
- Combined family help locality services – bringing together a range of practitioners including social workers, family support workers, specialist adolescent workers and parenting support staff. These services will provide help from community family hubs, and be connected with community and voluntary sector partners.
- A new FAMILY service – a specialist trained team to undertake family network meetings and family group conferences as a standard offer for all families before reaching child protection. This service will also offer targeted help at evenings and weekends.
- Lead child protection practitioners – specialist experienced social workers who will not be allocated professionals, but will lead child protection enquiries, conferences and plans, and co-ordinate strong multi-agency practice responses.
The right direction
Families first in Walsall builds on the family safeguarding model, which Walsall implemented in 2020. The learning from this model has been essential in developing an approach for providing effective multi-agency help for families, and understanding how this improves decision-making, joint working and purposeful relational practice.
These changes build on a positive direction of travel in Walsall, evidenced in a ‘good’ Ofsted judgement in 2021, and strong multi-agency feedback in a joint targeted area inspection in 2022.
Senior leaders in Walsall are fully committed to the families first programme. Colleen Male, executive director for children’s services – who started her career in Walsall as a social worker – said:
“I am very proud that Walsall has been selected as a pathfinder, and this reflects the tremendous hard work of our staff. They have driven our transformation journey to continually improve how we work, and step-by-step to get the right structures and ways of working in place with children and families. The pathfinder is a real opportunity to learn and innovate together and to create a framework that provides the foundations for great practice.”
Practitioners at Walsall echo this.Aklima has recently completed her assessed and supported year in employment (ASYE) in Walsall and has taken time to reflect on her experiences:
“I feel I have been supported and guided by colleagues who have offered advice and their perspectives on situations that families are going through, which is always great as they can provide a different insight. I have an understanding and supportive manager and consultant social worker who consistently checks up on me and offers guidance and considers opportunities for me to widen my knowledge and skills within social work to make progression within my career”.
Khaleel, a team manager, has been in Walsall for five years:
“The culture and support are fantastic with a real visible and present senior leadership team. I think our ethos and outlook is key to the help we provide our families and children, and we care about getting it right! The family help approach is really exciting for all of us, and we can’t wait to develop and shape this within our own service, with a focus on early prescriptive social work."
