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4.3.1 Family Support Panel

SCOPE OF THIS CHAPTER

A users guide


Contents 

  1. Why?
  2. What?
  3. When?
  4. How?


1. Why?

  1. The Family Support Panel was established in September 2002. In part a response to the criticisms of the Joint Review, and in part a response to concerns about the numbers of children coming into care in Walsall, often in an unplanned way, the Family Support Panel is also an acknowledgement that the work of department had become skewed and Family Support was somehow seen as a secondary activity within the work of social workers.
  2. Family Support must be seen as being at the heart of the activity of the department. Whether acting under Section 17 or Section 47, family support should be seen in its broadest sense and should, when consistent with the safety of the child support families in making their own plans for the welfare & protection of their children. 
  3. The Assessment Framework provides the foundation for a systematic assessment of children, their families and the services which may be required in order to ensure that a child reaches his or her full potential. This must be a shared responsibility between all agencies as well as with the parent/carer.
  4. The Framework embraces three key areas; the child’s developmental needs; the parenting capacity and wider family & environmental issues. The Framework makes it clear that assessment is a process, not an event and for this reason the provision of services according to the needs of the child/family should be provided in parallel with the assessment and do not necessarily need to await the completion of such assessment. For this reason the FSP will accept a variety of paperwork as long as the request for the service is clear and not as vague as “some Support”; such a request would seem to indicate a service led approach rather than a needs led approach.
  5. In completing assessments it is important to remember that this is not simply about the incident that has lead to referral, although this must obviously be taken into account. The whole picture is important and therefore the assessment needs to consider the wider family and the environmental context for the family as well as the child’s health, emotional well being and development. The assessment must also take account of the fact that many different factors will have an impact of the capabilities of the parent to meet the child’s needs and that those factors will impact on different children in differing ways, dependant on such variables as the age of the child and the existence of any other protective factors which need to be clearly identified and included in the ultimate analysis. Finally the assessment needs to identify the strengths within the family that can be built on as well as identifying and addressing any weaknesses.
  6. It is also important to remember that the Walsall area is home to a large number of minority ethnic communities; the children of these communities constitute a significant proportion of Walsall’s child population. Involvement of practitioners from the majority community into the minority community must be undertaken with sensitivity, so that the child’s welfare can be promoted and safeguarded without disproportionate effects on them or their welfare. Minority families are not all the same and include much diversity of language, religious observance, customs, family and parenting styles. When working with children in need it is important to be able to understand the child and family’s reality and to be able to communicate the reality of the system back. Please find out the family’s primary language and be aware that using relatives or children to help with the translation and interpreting process is not good practice and should be avoided. Practitioners should also be aware that not all communities work with a two parent nuclear family model but may have a co-operative parenting style where grandparents or other adults within the family will routinely undertake parenting tasks. It is important to include these relevant adults when assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the care experienced by any child.
  7. The concerns which surround the numbers of children coming into care within Walsall means that all requests for Section 20 accommodation and the circumstances relating to all children who come into care in an unplanned way must be presented to Panel. The Family Support Panel has a role as gatekeeper and will exercise that role.


2. What?

1. A variety of services can be accessed via the Family Support Panel, and there are plans to develop additional services during 2003. It is not intended that the Family Support Panel be used to access al the community and voluntary support services currently available, but rather that it used to used to access those services which must be targeted at the most vulnerable children within our communities.
2. The following are services currently available:
  1. Assessment of Parenting Capacity via a Family Centre.
    This assessment will cover all the elements of the Parenting Capacity domain. Workers from the Family Centre can also work with parents to ensure that the theoretical knowledge of what is required can be put into practice.
  2. A Child’s View of The World.
    Where a Family Centre is already involved with a child and family, workers from the centre can undertake direct work with the child to establish their view of their family.
  3. Keep Safe Work.
    Where a child is a risk, or thought likely to be at risk of Significant Harm, and as part of a wider plan, workers from a Family Centre can undertake direct work with a child.
  4. Handling Teenage Behaviour.
    These groups run in different places and at differing time around the borough and aim to offer parents emotional support and practical advice on living with a teenager.
  5. Family Assistant’s.
    This service works on a “doing with” rather than “doing for” model of service. It is not  a home help or cleaning service; nor is it an assessment service. It will work alongside parents/carers to establish routines and provide information to social workers as to the daily circumstances and difficulties within the family. While this service works “with” and not “for”, it is recognised that depression can have an impact on motivation. In these circumstances, and as part of a wider package to support & re-able a parent/carer this service should be requested.
  6. Assessed Contact/Supervised Contact.
    In newly presenting circumstances where it is necessary to assess the quality of the contact the Family Support Panel has access to a finance to support the use of sessional workers or contact agencies. These are expensive resources and are not available to facilitate on going or maintenance contact. Requests to Panel should come as part of a package and only when all other team/service based resources have been exhausted.
  7. Sponsored Childminding.
    This is a long established service providing accredited childminding to the wider community.
  8. Substance Misuse Advice.
    This service, which is a single session, can be provided as part of a wider package to young people who may be experimenting with various forms of substance misuse and is provided via the health worker located with the Youth Offending Service
  9. Sessional Workers.
    This is a relatively scare resource but can be available to support parents/carers and disaffected or socially excluded young people back into mainstream activity. The identification of such activity is the responsibility of the social worker and this service should not be seen as a “baby sitting” service. It is most effectively used when as part of a wider plan, e.g. attendance by parents at a Handling Teenage Behaviour group and on going input by the social worker.
  10. Accommodation Advice.
    This can be provided as one off advice to older teenagers and parents as part of a wider package of advice and is provided by the Youth Offending Service Accommodation Officer.
  11. Direct Work with Teenagers & their Families.
    This service is a new service, designed to reduce our reliance on sessional workers. The service is provided by Spurgeons Child Care. They will undertake wishes & feelings work with older children, mediation & negotiation between various family members and will work with disaffected or socially excluded young people to support them back into mainstream activity. A key role for  them is to work with social workers to prevent reception into care of teenagers. The service is currently growing, but will be available 365 days a year, & outside usual office hours.
3. The Panel cannot provide funding for psychological assessments. Such requests should always be made in writing to the PCT in the first instance.
4. There are a number of areas for development in 2004.

A review of  the current Family Assistant Service, which currently runs on a relatively small budget in planned.

A new service will be developed for the non abusing parent of children who have been the victim of  interfamilial sexual abuse.

A new service will be developed to work with dual heritage children and their carers on issues of self esteem and identity.

Finally the Family Support Manager will continue to work on identifying the availability and skills mix of the current sessional pool; the recruitment and support of this group of staff will form another key area of their work.
5. As part of the wider Family Support Strategy consideration needs to be given to developing a model for recording unmet need, as this will assist in future commissioning of services by Children's Services and with discussions with partner agencies.


3. When?

1.

Referral can be made to the Family Support Panel at any point during the lifetime of a case, e.g. 

  • at the completion of an Initial Assessment
  • during a Core Assessment* at the completion of a Section 47 Enquiry
  • at the completion of a Core Assessment
  • before a Child Protection Case Conference (Initial or Review)
  • after a child protection case conference (Initial or Review
  • etc etc
2. This is not an exhaustive list but intended to provide a rough guide as to when a case should be presented to Panel.
3.

There are some circumstances which must always be presented to the Family Support Panel

  • where a request for accommodation of a child has been made the child’s circumstances must be presented to Family Support Panel before any undertaken is given to the parent/carer or other professional
  • where the assessment of a child’s situation is indicating that accommodation may form part of the plan for that child, those circumstances must be presented to the Family Support Panel.
  • where a child has become Looked After in an unplanned way, the child’s circumstances and such assessment as is available must be presented to the next Panel.
4. The other circumstance which must always be presented to Panel are those where Children’s Guardians or others are requesting the use of an external contact agency or sessional worker to facilitate assessed contact.
5. While the services currently available are primarily aimed at users of the Initial Response Service and the Assessment, Inclusion & Family Support Services they are not exclusively for these services and there may be circumstances where a child and their family who are within the Looked After system may benefit from the available services. Any request for services must however reflect that the Outreach Team have a role in supporting the reunification of children to their birth family, especially if this is happening some years after the child/young person originally left the family home.


4. How?

1. The Family Support Panel meets every Thursday at The Challenge Building.
2. All referrals should be made to the Family Support Manager or her administrative assistant, based at The Early Years Unit and written information should arrive with the Family Support Manager no later than 3pm on Wednesday afternoon.
3. All referrals must be made on a WSS 995.
4.

When completing a referral social workers are asked to indicate the level of priority of the case against the following indicators:

  • Emergency-  Service  required within the next 24- 48hrs
  • Urgent-  Service required within the next 10days
  • Significant Need-  Service can be planned over the next 28days
  • Need can be met when the service is next available, i.e. group work
5. Workers are also asked to indicate whether the request is for Accommodation as such referrals are likely to require extra discussion time.

Workers are also asked to indicate if their request is to extend a service previous agreed by Panel.
6. Social Workers are encouraged to discuss the circumstances of their case with their own Manager and the Family Support Manager prior to referral in order to ensure that all aspects of possible service requirements are covered.
7. Panel members will convene at 9.30am to read the papers and times for attendance at Panel will be allotted from 10am onwards. Workers will be informed of their time to attend at the point of booking with the Family Support Manager or administrative assistant.
8. It is important is that any material presented clearly identifies the name, age, gender ethnicity and first language of the child/children /family and ensures that the service requested is clearly identified. Items such as “some support” or “a sessional worker” are not clear requests for a service and would seem to indicate a service led rather than a needs led approach. 
9. Social Workers holding case responsibility are encouraged to attend Panel. As with Adoption Panel and Placement Solution Panel the attendance of the case worker who will have a greater knowledge of the child and his/her circumstances can only be helpful to Panel in determining an outcome. If the allocated worker is unable to attend Panel, in discussion with their Manager they will need to determine who is best placed to attend in their absence. It is the responsibility of the allocated social worker to ensure that their substitute is well briefed.
10.

In respect of requests for Section 20 accommodation by parents, the social worker, in discussion with their manager should give consideration as to whether it would be beneficial for the parents to attend the Family Support Panel. In making this decision the social worker must ensure:

  • that a written risk assessment is completed and forwarded to the Family Support Manager
  • that the parents are properly briefed as to the purpose of Panel
  • that the parents are aware that Panel may not agree to the support package being presented. This means that the social worker & their manager must give consideration to managing the ongoing working relationship with the parents
  • that the Family Support Manager and admin support at The Early Years Unit are aware  that parents will be in attendance
11. In exceptional circumstances it will be possible for Panel to hear a request without any supporting written documentation. Exceptional circumstances may be defined as those circumstances arising within the previous 24hrs where Court, Children’s Guardians or a rapid deterioration in the home circumstances lead the social worker and/or the Manager to believe that immediate support is required. Exceptional circumstances do not include poor planning on the part of the worker/Manager, oversight on the part of the worker/Manager or forthcoming leave.
12. At the conclusion of Panel, each worker will leave knowing what, if any services have been agreed, for what period of time, and the review date, if applicable.
13. Minutes of the decisions taken by Panel will be circulated within 5 working days. These must be placed on the case file.

End