Office of the Children’s Commissioner: 'Don't make assumptions': Children's and young people's views of the child protection system and messages for change

"The aim of this research, commissioned by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and carried out by a team from the University of East Anglia, was to seek children and young people’s views of the child protection system and to consider how those views might contribute to improving responses to abuse and neglect. It aimed to gather the views of children and young people living with their parents, who all had a child protection plan in place. The research is timely as it comes during a period when the child protection system in England is being reviewed. We hope that the findings will be of interest to children and families involved in child protection, as well as to professionals working with children and to policy makers." - Page 7

Are Intensive Family Preservation Services Useful?: A Study in the United Kingdom

This evaluation of the first year of an Intensive Family Preservation Service in England is based on the analysis of eighty-six families: fifty-seven families who received the service and a comparison group of twenty-nine families who did not. The study considered whether the program was fulfilling its objectives of reducing the number of children and young people in the public care system; offering a safe, supportive service for children who need protection; integrating the program into family support services as a whole, and improving family functioning. The findings were complex to interpret. Child protection was improved but there was not a reduction in the number of children needing out of home care (indeed there was an increase) meaning that short term savings in costs could not be made. Nor were there lasting improvements in the children’s behavior. There were instead a number of more subtle, arguably more sensitive outcomes: parents’ capacity to tolerate their child’s behavior was greater and overall family functioning was better for most families who received the service. Also families were, on the whole, able to make better use of follow up services

Turning points or turning around: Family coach work with 'troubled families'

The study aimed to discover how family coaches work intensively with families with moderately complex problems bringing together perceptions from 20 families, 20 coaches and six other professionals, and exploring potential savings for 50 family cases. The Family Coaching Service is part of the English government’s ‘Troubled Families’ payment by results initiative, seeking to help families ‘turn their lives around’ to save state spending on anti-social behaviour, worklessness and school absence. Results show the work to be a staged process, over six months with the coach combining practical help with relationship building to engage families, set and achieve goals and negotiate endings. Cost savings were made in 82% of cases. Family coaches find the work rewarding but emotionally demanding. Families say their coach is special and different, and describe potential turning point experiences stemming from the work with their coach. There is clear congruence in the perceptions of the service from families, coaches and other professionals. Some tensions were evident in the work with other professionals and in managing relationship boundaries with families. Relationship-based help offered by para-professionals may offer a promising model of family support that statutory social workers in particular can learn from and engage with