Further memorandum submitted by the Family
Policy Alliance
1. FAMILY POLICY
ALLIANCE (FPA)
FPA comprises three lead organisations (Family
Rights Group, Family Welfare Association and Parentline Plus)
which provide advice and support to families who are caring for
children, many of whom are disadvantaged or vulnerable and in
need of additional support from the State to raise their children.
Between us we support tens of thousands of families
every year, and we draw upon this collective experience of working
with families when making our submission to the Committee. We
have also consulted with a much larger group of similar organisations
who broadly support our views.
2. EVERY CHILD
MATTERS—THEREFORE
EVERY FAMILY
MATTERS TOO
— Parents and other family members
are the main carers of almost all children in the country.
— This applies not just children who
receive mainstream services, but also those who are in need, those
on the CPR (CPR) (85% live at home) and even those who are looked
after (estimated 92% return home).
— Therefore, any policy which aims
to improve outcomes for children must be based on the premise
that parents and families are key players and their needs and
perspective must be inform the design and delivery of services.
— This may sound obvious but given
the extensive lobbying and debate that was necessary in the House
of Lords to ensure that an amendment was accepted to the effect
parents' needs were recognised on the face of the Children Act
2004 [s 10 (3)], it cannot be assumed.
3. WHY IS
FAMILY SUPPORT
POLICY NOT
WORKING?
We start from the premise that the vast majority
of parents want to do the very best for their children, but there
are significant material and environmental factors which militate
against this—poverty, stigma, poor housing, poor health,
domestic violence, discrimination, social exclusion—they
therefore need support from the State to help them in their child
rearing tasks (reflects expectations of Article 18 United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)).
Government has repeatedly stated its commitment
to providing this support to families. The latest initiative is
the Common Assessment Framework which aims to address children's
needs which are not met at a very early stage.
But sadly, to date, support has not been delivered
to many who most need it unless they are in crisis so we are sceptical
about the likelihood of this laudable goal being achieved.
The current obstacles to effective support for
families at an early stage are:
— Lack of adequate investment in prevention:
this is not news, but given the extensive investment which will
be committed to the implementation of new proposals which flow
from Every Child Matters, it is timely for all to pause and ask
the question: is this new investment being put to the best use?
Family Policy Alliance, (supported by many similar
organisations) says it is not—because the current systems
are not in themselves defective—indeed the legal and practice
framework is broadly sound—the problems stem from a lack
of implementation of current support, protection and child welfare
policies, and a lack of accountability for this failure. Witnesses
far more eminent than FPA have and will make this point forcefully
to the Committee.
— S 17 places a duty on the local authority
to provide support for children in need and their families.
S 17 (10) and (11) defines what is meant by "in
need" in law, but the lack of resources behind family support,
means that local authorities redefine it when setting their eligibility
criteria for who can and who cannot receive support.
In our experience, these eligibility criteria
are set very high—closer to child protection thresholds,
so families don't get support until the home situation is in crisis
and their child potentially at risk of harm.
Whilst the Common Assessment Framework (CAF)
will clearly improve consistency of assessment between agencies,
it will not address this problem as the threshold for conducting
a CAF is not defined. It is likely that the same situation will
therefore persist, unless substantial resources are put into not
just training on the CAF, but also actually carrying out the CAF
guidance and providing services identified as being needed in
the assessment.
— The difficulty for families is how
to get services when they want them. Time and again we see families
asking for help yet not receiving it until the home situation
has reached such a crisis that the children are at risk or are
registered on the child protection register—it is this registration
which unlocks the provision of family support services.
Eg: Michelle's case—a mother of three seeking
help with her 10 year old son's extreme behaviour problems—putting
her and her other children under intolerable stress. She begged
for specialist help both for him and for herself to address his
difficulties but for years help was refused. It was only when
it became so intolerable that she left him at his school at the
end of the day, that SSD took her seriously, and provided support,
but by then, because of her desperate action, it had become a
child protection matter.
— Having said the legal and practice
framework is sound we should qualify that in some respects: because
of the limited resources and strict gate keeping of s.17 services,
parents who want and are asking for support need the law to empower
them all the more so to challenge a refusal of support, they need
the LA to be under a duty to:
— assess their child's needs on
request: the problem is there is a general not an individual duty
on the local authority;
— to provide services to meet any
identified needs; and
— to provide access to independent
advice and advocacy to support families to challenge a refusal
of services.
We lobbied on this when the Children Act 2004
was debated in Parliament but our amendments were strongly resisted.
— This gate keeping of services in
line with a child protection threshold has several adverse consequences
for children and families:
— Children are denied services
until they are at risk of harm only; and
— if support is offered in the
context of child protection enquiries, parents are often distrustful
and even fearful of any support offered because it no longer seems
to be a voluntary process in which they have a choice and some
degree of control. "research—Quinton et al—shows
how important parents retaining control is for support to be effective."
For example, if one takes the possibility of
a family attending a parenting class or family centre, the message
this gives is completely different if child protection enquiries
have begun than if they have not.
If the service is offered when a child/parents'
needs are first identified the message is, "I can see your
son has some challenging behaviour and we want to support you
to address these challenges, would you like to come to this parenting
course/family centre to develop your parenting skills?"
Whereas
If it is "offered" to a parent/family
as part of a child protection plan the message is more like, "We
think you are not able to discipline your son; he is clearly out
of control and you haven't been able to meet his needs (or worse,
you have neglected/emotionally abused him) so we are going to
give you a last chance to improve your parenting of him by coming
to this parenting course/family centre, but if you don't improve
we will take him into care".
It doesn't take a PhD in psychology to work
out that the first feels supportive whereas the second feels frightening
and coercive—such an approach is likely to adversely affect
the potential benefits of the support offered, and it is contrary
to the core principle of partnership in the Children Act 1989.
4. SO WHAT
WOULD MAKE
FAMILY SUPPORT
POLICY EFFECTIVE?
Rationalise the confusing philosophical tensions
and policy contradictions which exist between government departments
eg
— Contrast DfES policy of supporting
families with Home Office policies which tend to view families
as the source of the problem and be punitive rather than supportive
in seeking solutions—parenting orders/ASBOs under ASBA 2003,
proposal to take children into care following refusal of asylum
s 9 NIA 2002.
DFES must invest in family support—there
is an opportunity to do so when introducing CAF, but there will
need to be a key period of double funding to address the needs
of both young people whilst rolling out an extensive early intervention
program for younger children and their families.
Amend the law to place a duty on the local authority
to:
— to assess the needs of children (and
their families) when they are in need as defined in s 17(10) and
(11); and
— provide services to met those identified
needs.
Again, this would be consistent with Article
18 UNCRC.
— Respect and listen to parents and
treat them as equal partners in promoting good outcomes for children.
After all they are better informed than anyone in knowing what
their children need and in the vast majority of cases will continue
to be responsible for caring for their children.
This is the strong message from recent research
on Family Support and also from those we have consulted with over
the last year. Family Policy Alliance has consulted with:
— approximately 30 voluntary organisations
and individuals who are directly involved in the design, delivery
and evaluation of direct services which support families who are
caring for children, and
— families who are in receipt of these
services.
Together we have set down some key messages
about the way in which family support services should be delivered—these
can be summarised as:
— Parents need to be able to say what
they need to support them to care for their children, and to be
heard and respected, and
— There needs to be clarity as to the
respective roles of the parent and the professional to provide
the basis for a mutual trust between the parents and the agency
which delivers support services.
For ease of reference, we call this the 6 R's:
— Reachable services—accessible
local services available from a range of providers, integrated
to avoid going over painful stories and sorting out incomplete
agency records, and which don't have long waiting lists, are culturally
sensitive etc.
— Recognition—of the family's
view of their need. They often do not know what they are entitled
to receive and do not have any clear understanding of when or
how their need for support is being assessed.
— Response—to the needs of the
whole family. Families have a good understanding of what works
for them. Professionals should listen to the family's wishes.
— Respect—the family's expertise
about their child's needs. Their culture and their skills need
to be valued and respected.
Families want to take responsibility for the
challenges of parenting. Therefore, although they welcome support
in their parenting role, they want to retain autonomy, choice
and control about how to use services to benefit their children
(unless this would in itself place the child at risk).
— Referral—to services which
meet their expressed need, or signposting so as to put a package
of services together. Front line service workers should be interactive
with families and able to signpost effectively and give information
about a range of services. They therefore need training and adequate
time to listen to what families want and help them work out what
is available.
— Review—to check whether the
support provided is useful. This will identify whether another
service is needed or should it be used in a different way—through
the individual case and also the overall service evaluation. Parents
want their needs to be met so as to enhance their care of their
children.
Finally, INVEST in services over the longer-term.
The greatest impediment to children achieving the five outcomes
is poverty and material deprivation. Until this is addressed,
some children will continue to fail to achieve these goals and
a number will be at risk of avoidable harm.
Short-term or fixed term funding as the experience
of the Children Fund demonstrates does not build the necessary
foundation for sustained service development and delivery. Not
does it secure the skills within the workforce to enable professionals
to work alongside parents and carers.
5. WHY THE
DATABASE WON'T
WORK
A local database will not assist the support
of children whose families are transient. It needs to be national.
Information about agencies' involvement with
children and families would be useful if operated nationally except
that the data it contains is likely to become out of date fast—whose
responsibility will it be to update information? What about the
DPA/HRA compatibility?
Flagging causes of concern is fundamentally
flawed for the following reasons:
— There is no definition of cause for
concern so there will be no sense of uniformity across the country
and across professions about when a flag should be logged. If
it is pursued, it must be defined and in our view linked to a
clear duty to assess the need for support.
— It is not linked to the existing
legislative framework to provide support to children and families.
Therefore, if a concern logged by one professional, it will not
trigger a corresponding response from another to take action.—It
will create an erroneous comfort zone for professionals who have
logged without achieving anything for the child.
— It is likely that flagging concern
will alarm families rather than support them especially as there
is no corresponding duty to provide support. It will undermine
the partnership and trust between family and State to work together
to achieve good outcomes for children—and this is already
identified by research as the key factor in protecting children
who are at risk of harm.
Finally, we oppose its implementation on the
basis that it will be hugely expensive to set up and maintain
and the resources and funds could be much better spent on much
needed assessment and service provision.
January 2005
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