Education CommitteeFurther written evidence submitted by Home-Start UK

Introduction

1(a) Home-Start UK is one of the UK’s leading family support charities. There are 225 Local Home-Starts in England supporting over 26,000 families and 56,000 children. Local Home-Starts in England cover 76 % of all local authority areas. Home-Start UK works with local communities to develop new services which are established as separate charities but are linked in a network through Home-Start UK. In 2011–12 Local Home-Starts had 226 funding related SureStart/Children’s Centres partnerships and 159 non-funding related SureStart/Children’s Centres partnerships. There are various local models of partnership working.

1(b) We welcome the opportunity to submit evidence to this enquiry, and our submission draws upon our extensive experience with Sure Start from its inception (Melhuish et al, 2006). A recent survey of the England Home-Start network (n=53) reported that Local Home-Starts work closely with Children’s centres in the following ways:

Table 1

THE WAYS HOME-START WORKS WITH CHILDREN’S CENTRES

Involvement	% of Local Home-Starts
Sitting on Management Committees/equivalent of children’s centre	57
Making referrals to children’s centre	78
Accepting referrals from children’s centre	94
Contracted by children’s centre to provide home-visiting family support services	29
Contracted by children’s centre to provide training to children’s centre staff	4
Contracted by children’s centre to provide volunteers	5
Contracted by children’s centre to provide training to children’s centre volunteers	5
Contracted by children’s centre to provide group work	9
Contracted by children’s centre to provide targeted family support work eg “out reach work”	14
Contracted by children’s centre to provide other services	44

Other links to childrens centres include contributing to Ofsted inspections; Children Centre outreach workers attending Home-Start groups; use of Children Centre venues; providing nursery safety equipment to any family identified by Children Centre staff. From the table above it can be seen that Home-Start provides a key element of the overall Children Centre offer.

2. Summary

2(a) Data sharing

It is noted that there have been some concerns expressed re individual family information sharing during the select committee hearings, particularly concerning health professionals. Home-Start has an established relationship with health visitors [@50% of all Home-Start referrals are from health visitors] and there are clear routes for information sharing. Home-Start has a clear information sharing policy which is covered in the Home-Start volunteer preparation course. We explain to children and families at the outset how and when information will be shared, including within Home-Start. For individual families we are supporting Home-Start staff will attend multi-agency meetings with the family’s knowledge and consent, and having discussed with them the information that will be shared, with whom and how it will be recorded. The exception being where there are concerns for the safety or welfare of a child and it would not be safe or practical to do so. Having established good local working relationships across professional groups Home-Start does not currently have particular concerns associated with individual family information sharing.

2(b) Aggregate monitoring data sharing

The area of concern that Home-Start has regarding information sharing is around sharing of aggregate monitoring information for outcome measurement. Children Centres monitor their contact data and their participation data. This is part of “partnership working and the role Children Centres have for ensuring that integrated and good quality family services are located in accessible places and are welcoming to all” [Ofsted inspection criterion]. Home-Starts are often asked to supply numbers of families that Home-Start has worked with in the Children Centre catchment area [66% of Local schemes asked, provide HS family monitoring data to CCs for their overall family numbers]. For example one way Children Centre staff collect contact data is by handing out registration/membership forms for Children Centres at Home-Start groups. This data will contribute to outcomes for children centres and therefore it is important that attribution is clearly identified.

Recommendation: Children Centre data bases eg e-start allow referral and provider agencies to be recorded so attribution can be identified.

3. Children Centre Outcomes Framework

3(a) Home-Start would welcome the development of a childrens centre outcomes framework. The choice of appropriate outcomes is essential. Recent research by Hermanns et al (2013) has used a series of outcome measures related to parental competence, parental behaviour change and child outcomes in a longitudinal study of Home-Start over three years. The results show positive impact on parenting outcomes after support had recently ended and positive outcomes for child behaviour and parenting three years after support had ended. This research can make a significant contribution to the development of an outcomes framework for children centres.

3(b) Home-Start track the journey of change for each family it supports and has commissioned the development of a single outcome measure which is simple to administer and is appropriate for a universal access family support service where the families have many and various needs. It focuses on family resilience—coping.

3(c) Many children’s centres report that they are less successful in reaching families suffering from “hidden needs” like domestic violence, lone parents and teenage parents. Home-Start monitoring data is indicating that Home-Start is supporting 13% of families where domestic abuse is a concern and 34% of families supported are lone parents.

4. Co Location

4(a) Co-location of Children Centres with other family support services has obvious efficiencies. However, Home-Start does not see co-location as an essential element in the successful delivery of family support. Outreach, targeting and engaging families most in need is the key element of a effective family support. Home-Start works from the premise of starting where the family is, both in terms of location and needs. It is about relationship building and trust as much as bricks and mortar. This outreach and home based work is fundamental to improving outcomes for parents and children. Research by Moran and Ghate (2004) outline the characteristics of successful parenting support which include:

Interventions that pay close attention to implementation factors for “getting”, “keeping” and “engaging” parents (in practical, relational, cultural/contextual, strategic and structural domains;

Services that allow multiple routes in for families (variety of referral routes);

Interventions using more than one method of delivery (ie, multi-component interventions).

The Home-Start model is based on these approaches.

4(b) Rural isolation is a concern when considering the use of childrens centres. Children centres tend to work best in high density populations. Gray (2002) identified that most users live very close to their children centre. Thirty% lived less than 500 metres from the centre, 61% less than 1km, and 78% less than 1.5km. Home-Start works on the principle that the family has to be able to make a journey to use a facility by themselves in a sustainable way once Home-Start support ceases. In some instances families therefore need home visiting and support to develop very local networks. An example of this would be Ryedale Home-Start supports families in the Dales and Wolds of Yorkshire where the health visitors have identified as being deprived and social isolated. Home-Start volunteers go to those families homes. The nearest Children Centres are based in the local market towns eg Pickering which are often 10 miles away.

5. Children Centre Workforce Development

5(a) Children Centers’ family support workforce is being recruited from experienced voluntary sector staff. Ball and Niven (2006) recognized that in Sure Start Local provision the manager often was formerly a Home-Start organiser. Currently 43% of local HSs have had staff or volunteers who have moved to employment in a children’s centre in the last 12 months. Several Local Home-Starts commented that the move has been happening over the last five years. This developmental route for staff/volunteers is to be welcomed as it contributes to building local social capital and addressing work linked deprivation. However, as part of strategic planning for the workforce for Children’s Centres this reliance on the resources of the voluntary sector to recruit train and manage staff and volunteers should be acknowledged.

Recommendation: Recognition of the valuable part that the voluntary sector and volunteerism plays locally in developing a skilled family support workforce and the recognition of the associated resources required to do so.

6. Governance and Leadership

6(a) Ofsted reports that changes in leadership and commissioning arrangements are emerging, and an increasing number of centres are being brought together to operate under shared leadership, management and governance arrangements. It is Home-Start’s experience that the use of robust quality assurance measures for leadership and governance arrangements are crucial to ensure the delivery of excellent child outcomes. Quality assurance systems for leadership and governance can facilitate the move from reliance on individual often charismatic leaders to building a systematic approach to embedding good leadership and governance practices and systems.

Recommendation: Development of a set of expanded quality assurance indicators for children centres appropriate for governance and leadership of a partially volunteer led service.

7. Commissioning

7(a) Diversity in the delivery of children’s centres should be encouraged. More local authorities should go further in opening up their commissioning to the voluntary sector and social enterprises to increase the range of Sure Start children’s centre providers and the range of specialist and community based approaches. Local authorities should take positive steps to level the playing field and invite voluntary sector organisations to tender to run more services. Families’ needs, not commissioning processes, should direct service provision. Claire Tickell CEO Action for Children, while giving evidence earlier this year made the point that it is unhelpful for local commissioners to commission Children Centres at the expense of other local voluntary services like Home-Start. It is not either/or—this is because voluntary sector family support services are a key part of the local jigsaw of support and are providing the family engagement with local services which is key to improving family outcomes. Below is an example of changes which occurred following a particular tender specification.

“Historically we have held contracts to deliver drop-ins and family groups within children centres and formally Surestart for over 10 years but as of April 2013 the work was put out to tender as the local authority wanted one organisation to deliver this work across the county. Half our scheme staff were TUPE transferred over to the successful bidder. There is now no local preventative group work being done from children’s centres in our area or opportunities for volunteering in groups. The children centre managers are very keen to work with Home-Start but the current tendering processes have not supported this”. Local Home-Start Manager.

Commissioning and re-commissioning on a very regular basis can have a detrimental impact on the vital continuity of service support to vulnerable families and safeguarding issues may arise.

8. Parenting Programmes and Evidence-based Programmes

8(a) Parenting programmes are a key tool in the family support sector. Part of the successful delivery of a parenting programme is the “wrap around support”—a provider that successfully delivers a parenting programme has to undertake work with parents before, during and after delivery of the programme.

Identification of suitable parents.

Engagement.

Support and sustain engagement during delivery of the programme.

Retention.

Embedding learning and formative assessment.

Reinforcing learning outside the formal delivery process.

Support post-group to widen the parent’s support networks.

It is these roles that Home-Start provides in working alongside Children’s Centres. For example HS’s support of Family Nurse Partnership programmes across England includes:

Home-Start involved in the local set up and management committee	6.12% 3
Home-Start refer to FNP	6.12% 3
FNP refer to Home-Start when families graduate from FNP	22.45% 11

The first cohort going through FNP is only just graduating so we are expecting the number of follow up referrals post FNP to increase. As the FNP entry criteria are quite specific locally Home-Starts provide support for the families who do not meet the entry requirements eg FNP refer to Bump-Start Westminster [a Home-Start pre birth group] when the family does not fit their strict criteria.

Members of the Select Committee are warmly invited to visit more local Home-Starts to see the various ways Home-Start supports children centres in deprived local communities.

References

Ball, M; Niven, L (Nov 2006). National evaluation summary: Outreach and home-visiting services in Sure Start Local Programmes, pp8. www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/NESS/2006/SF/017.

Garbers, C, Tunstill, J, Allnock, D & Akhurst, S (2006). Facilitating access to services for children and families lessons from Sure Start local programmes. Child & Family Social Work, 11(4), 287–296.

Gray, B. (2002). Emotional labour and befriending in family support and child protection in Tower Hamlets. Child & Family Social Work, 7(1), 13–22.

Hermanns, J. Et al (2013) Long term changes in parenting and child behaviour after the Home-Start family program Children and Youth Services Review 35 (2013) 678–684

Melhuish et al (2006). Outreaching and Home-visiting services in Sure Start local programmes Report 017

Moran, P, Ghate, D, & van der Merwe, A (2004). What works in parenting support? A review of the international evidence (RR574). London: Department for Education and Skills. Retrieved from: http://www.prb.org.uk/wwiparenting/RR574.pdf

July 2013