Research and analysis

Supporting Families 바카라 사이트� Whole Family Working: Informing Future System Reform Annual report of the Supporting Families programme 2024 to 2025

Published 9 June 2025

Applies to England

Presented to Parliament pursuant to section (3) 6 of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016

Ministerial Foreword Janet Daby MP

After 13 years of delivery, the Supporting Families programme ended on 31 March 2025. In this time, 858,179 vulnerable families have been supported through whole family working to achieve positive and sustained outcomes.

The success of the programme is down to the many local leaders and practitioners who have been involved in this work. Their dedication and perseverance, working across the sector, in a multi-disciplinary and multi-agency way, has made this possible and I am hugely grateful for all that has been done.

Going forward, this government has committed over 拢500 million to support local authorities working with their safeguarding partners to invest in transformation and the expansion of preventative support in 2025-26 through the Families First Partnership (FFP) Programme. It is now time to ensure whole family working becomes standard practice across the whole system of support for children, young people and families. This approach of providing the right help, at the right time, by the right practitioner will support more children and families to stay together and thrive.

Janet Daby MP
Minister for Children and Families
Department for Education

Executive summary

Several programmes delivered by local government over many years have paved the way for the children바카라 사이트檚 social care reforms. This has included evidence from the Supporting Families programme, the Strengthening Families, Protecting Children programme, and lessons so far from the 10 local authorities as part of the Families First for Children Pathfinder. This publication summarises the learning from the delivery of the final year of the Supporting Families programme, covering the period April 2024 바카라 사이트� March 2025.

• Since the publication of the last annual report 104,761 families have been supported to achieve a successful family outcome. The programme has now achieved 858,179 successful family outcomes from April 2012 to March 2025.
• The programme delivered research and evaluation into early help practice and delivery. The programme appointed IFF research to analyse local spending on early help services. A trial of systemic practice in early help services was commissioned in five local areas. Systemic practice is based on Systemic Family Therapy.
• The programme has supported local system transformation. The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Good Practice project ran between May 2023 until December 2024 across five local authorities. The aim was to test methods to better connect the SEND system of support with the wider early help system of support. The Mental Health Good Practice project, which ran between April 2023 until September 2024, aimed to identify barriers to connecting mental health support with early help services. Both projects have identified learning and good practice which has been, or will be, widely shared.
• The 2024 Data Survey shows improvements in local data systems. The programme has promoted and supported improvements to local data systems to facilitate whole system transformation. Data maturity is measured against a six-point model of increasing maturity. In terms of overall data maturity, there have been substantial improvements in the maturity of local authority data systems and data sharing. 52% of areas give practitioners access to data in some form. 28% of areas provide regularly updated data for internal practitioners. Many local partners hold early help cases as lead practitioner and 44% of local authorities have partners able to complete assessments on their case management systems.
• Peer support has helped improve early help system maturity and data maturity. In 2023 the Supporting Families programme funded a project to provide more direct support to areas through peer support. The aim was to improve early help system maturity and data maturity of areas. These projects aimed to impact the programme바카라 사이트檚 performance through increasing the number of successful family outcomes achieved; increasing the maturity of early help systems; embedding whole family working; and increasing the data maturity of local authorities and the early help system.

Chapter 1 - National programme update

This is the programme바카라 사이트檚 ninth annual report and sets out the key achievements and policy developments over the last year. This report fulfils the duty to report on disadvantaged families in the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016.

The programme

The Supporting Families programme funded local authorities to work together with their partners to provide help for families facing multiple, interconnected problems, including unemployment, poor school attendance, mental and physical health problems, involvement in crime and antisocial behaviour, domestic abuse, and children in need of help and protection. It has required areas to work with a whole family approach: ensuring there is one assessment, one family plan and a lead practitioner who works with the family and coordinates services around a common plan.

To support this way of working, the programme has been committed to driving strong multi-agency local partnerships in every local authority area and enabling mature local and national data systems. This has meant investing more in good practice, overcoming barriers to data-sharing, and involving the voice of families in service design and commissioning.

In response to the Independent Review of Children바카라 사이트檚 Social Care, the national ownership of the programme moved from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local 바카라 사이트 to the Department for Education in April 2024. This move brought together the spectrum of reforms around Family Help and enabled better co-ordination of the whole system of support for children and families.

Next steps to support families

This government has committed over 拢500 million to support local authorities working with their safeguarding partners to invest in transformation and expansion of preventative support in 2025-26 through the Families First Partnership (FFP) Programme. The aim of the FFP Programme is to transform the whole system of help, support and protection, to ensure that every family can access the right help and support when they need it, with a strong emphasis on early intervention to prevent crisis.

The approach to these reforms has been trialled through the Families First for Children Pathfinder programme which has demonstrated that for safeguarding partners, effective transformation of family support means considering how services from universal to social care intervention interact as a connected system. Learning from the Pathfinders will support all areas with the roll out of reforms to the whole system through the FFP Programme.

The FFP Programme will support safeguarding partners to bring together targeted early help, child in need, and multi-agency child protection into a seamless system of help, support and protection. Further detail can be found in the programme guide.

Chapter 2 - Local system transformation

Early Help System Guide

The Early Help System Guide (EHSG) provided a national vision and thirty-one descriptors (structured into five sections) for a mature early help system. It was widely consulted upon across other government departments and was based on what was working around the country.

As a self-assessment document, it provided an ongoing framework for areas to understand their progress and prioritise next steps. Areas were asked to submit a self-assessment on an annual basis and structured feedback was provided to all areas. The scores and narrative provided in the self-assessments were used to support areas to continue to develop their system maturity.

The collection of these self-assessments in July 2024 was the third in three years. This allowed the programme to conduct a comparison on the change in self-assessment scores. The table below shows the average self-assessed scores for 2022 to 2024 and a very positive average increase of 0.6 on most sections. The scale for each descriptor is zero-five.

Table 1: Self- assessed scores headline comparison 2022-2024

Year	Family Voice	Workforce	Communities	Leaders	Data
2022	3.2	3	2.9	2.9	2.7
2023	3.5	3.3	3.2	3.2	2.9
2024	3.8	3.6	3.6	3.5	3.2

All areas also identified 3 of the 31 descriptors to prioritise for improvement during 2024-25. The following were the most often identified:

• Family engagement: We have well established mechanisms to gather and act on feedback from families and engage people with lived experience in service design, governance and quality assurance.
• Multi-agency workforce development plan: We have a multi-agency workforce development plan based on workforce development needs, to help embed the shared practice framework and culture.
• Regular data feeds: We have regular data feeds from all parts of the partnership to support whole family working. These are open feeds and underpinned by strong data sharing agreements.
• Case management system access: Our case management system allows all partners to securely access all relevant cases and record whole family assessments.
• Data system: We have a system that allows us to pull together all data, analyse these data and ensure practitioners can see results.
• Data analysis: We have developed innovative analytical products. This could be needs analysis, place-based analysis, individual or family level risk analytics, apps or systems to improve information available to practitioners and partners, quantifying qualitative case notes or other documentation or any other product or system that has changed/improved our ways of working.

SEND Good Practice project

This project ran between May 2023 and December 2024 across five local authorities following a competitive bidding process.

Each of the areas aimed to:

• Test methods to better connect the SEND system of support with the wider early help system of support, to ensure families of a child with SEND receive a whole family response to their needs.
• Produce findings on how assessing the wider needs of families with a child identified as having SEND can improve outcomes and manage the family바카라 사이트檚 needs early to prevent escalation.
• To share learning with other project areas and nationally, to accelerate transformation in this area.

Hertfordshire County Council

Hertfordshire was awarded 拢93,391 and appointed two front-line practitioner posts that worked directly with families, built relationships between schools and parents, built relationships with schools and participated in multi-agency SEND meetings. They chose to target the project in two specific districts which had a large, diverse population and a higher proportion of children and young people needing SEND support.

Leeds City Council

Leeds was awarded 拢112,268 and appointed two SEND Navigators who were based in their Specialist Inclusive Learning Centres (SILC) Cluster. They worked with families following formal diagnosis and supported them holistically, through whole family assessments and utilising early help plans and taking a partnership approach to ensuring families have the right conversations, at the right time, with the right people.

Nottingham City Council

Nottingham was awarded 拢91,466. This project embedded two Family Support Workers/Learning Mentors in two secondary schools to work alongside both the SENCO and the behaviour/inclusion/pastoral lead. The support workers worked with the whole family and acted as the lead practitioner where appropriate. They worked closely with the secondary schools and with pupils in Year 5/6 feeder schools, who transitioned through to Year 7 over the course of the project.

London Borough of Southwark

Southwark was awarded 拢86,299 to employ a link worker that worked between the Early Help and SEND teams. The front-line worker worked directly with families on a range of issues. One of the main activities was working between families and schools by rebuilding trust between the two parties. This was targeted in two areas due to the high level of need in the localities. Southwark were keen to prevent escalation of cases.

Wakefield Metropolitan Borough Council

Wakefield was awarded 拢80,488. Their vision was to use a whole family assessment process to provide an early response that includes individual tailored advice and support for the whole family. They recruited two SEND Family Support Worker posts to carry out these new whole family assessments. Wakefield aimed to remove barriers to ensure appropriate support for the family was available at the earliest opportunity.

Early findings

There are a range of early findings from the pilots shared in summary below:

• Better signposting and earlier support leads to de-escalation of need for families, which enables support workers to work more intensively with families with higher needs. In turn, this can reduce caseloads and improve outcomes.
• Support for parents is vital in tackling challenges with attendance. Many parents share anxiety with the children which can compound poor attendance. Implementing routines and addressing concerns around support in school for their children are some of the more common issues that were seen during the pilot.
• In many of the families supported, relationships between parents and schools were broken. Advocacy and relationship building have been vital aspects across all of the pilot areas. Being a mediator between each party has enabled progress to be made and positive outcomes for the children.

The project was completed in December 2024 and the full report of findings will be published in due course.

Mental Health Good Practice project

This project ran between April 2023 to September 2024 across five local authorities following a competitive bidding process: Hull, Kirklees, Leicestershire, Southwark and

Wiltshire. Northumberland County Council led on this project on behalf of the national Supporting Families team to oversee the good practice pilots.

Each of the areas aimed to:

• Identify barriers to connecting mental health support with early help services.
• Test methods to ensure timely mental health support for families accessing early help whole family support.
• Highlight effective local solutions and best practices for service delivery.
• Share learning across pilot areas to promote broader transformation.

Hull City Council

Hull was awarded 拢90,000 and employed a mental health practitioner within the VCSE sector to support families and early help professionals 바카라 사이트� ensuring referrals were made

into the correct services, reducing duplication and ensuring families receive the support they need in a timely manner. The post holder was co-located within an Early Help team in a Family Hub in the north of the city. This co-location helped with collaboration, integration and improved outcomes for children, young people and families.

Kirklees Council

Kirklees was awarded 拢69,000 and employed an early support consultant within an existing consultation team. The consultant role was co-located with case-holding professionals from adult mental health and early help services. They helped assess need, explore family circumstances and refer to secondary services where necessary. They facilitated improved communication and understanding between professionals involved, which enabled better working together and information sharing, shared decision making and collaborative practice. This impacted positively on assessment of need, exploration of family circumstances and timely, appropriate referrals to additional services where necessary.

Leicestershire County Council

Leicestershire was awarded 拢84,057 and employed a mental health practitioner to sit within family services at the Family Hub. The role provided assessment, consultation and support to Early Help Keyworkers and supported the adult mental health team in that area. One 0.5 Change Management Leader was also employed.

London Borough of Southwark

Southwark was awarded 拢85,650 and employed an Adult Mental Health Clinical

Practitioner to enhance early help practice and promote integrated service delivery for families with children aged 5바카라 사이트�19. The role focused on prevention by embedding proactive support for family mental health within early help services, ensuring families receive timely and appropriate support

Wiltshire Council

Wiltshire was awarded 拢75,000 and created a Mental Health Support Worker role to improve the links between families and local mental health support. These practitioners provided direct support to families who are likely to experience crisis without dedicated support and work with the whole family and the whole 바카라 사이트榮ystem바카라 사이트�.

Two different approaches were adopted:

Consultative model

Three pilots were predominately designed to offer a consultation model to Early Help Family Workers and/or adult services workers. Support included case consultations, attendance at group supervision and training.

Direct support/capacity building

Two pilots were designed to add capacity to the emotional wellbeing pathways already available in the local authorities.

Key learning from the pilot:

Each pilot saw an improvement in the integration of services, whether this was between Children and Adult Services or Health and the local authority. The consultation role increased the confidence of workers to address presenting needs themselves and supported them to work more effectively with the whole family.

Pilots showed improvements in communication, collaboration, and the overall confidence of workers in addressing mental health needs, for both adults and children.

In addition, the consultation models showed positive outcomes in the:

• Identification of mental health issues.
• Confidence in taking appropriate actions, and a more comprehensive understanding of family dynamics.
• Workers feeling empowered to support families holistically.

Alternatively, the direct support/capacity building models led to positive outcomes such as:

• The ability to offer something different prevented further referrals to specialist services.

• All the local authorities involved found that being part of the pilot led to useful conversations about how services are governed, and the need to ensure they are working together to consider the whole family바카라 사이트檚 needs.

• The emphasis on seeing 바카라 사이트減atients as parents바카라 사이트� fostered a more inclusive approach within Adult Services, ensuring that the needs of children were considered alongside those of their parents.

Continued investment in training, and support for frontline workers, will be crucial to sustain the positive changes and enable moving closer to an ideal vision of Mental Health and Family Support Services.

Data survey

The data survey is a survey of all upper tier local authorities in England. It has been run by the Supporting Families programme each year since 2019. It covers case management systems, data systems, data sharing with partners, skills and reporting. It gives a good understanding of the level of data maturity of each area on the six point scale of the Supporting Families data maturity model. This year new questions were added on data matching and use of the NHS number. This was to support the government바카라 사이트檚 manifesto commitment to introduce a single unique identifier to improve data sharing in children바카라 사이트檚 services. The main findings of this year바카라 사이트檚 survey are set out below:

• In terms of overall data maturity, there has been substantial self-reported improvements in the maturity of local authority data systems and data sharing.
• Many local partners hold early help cases as lead practitioner. Less than half of areas (44%) have partners able to complete assessments on local authority case management systems. This is a small increase from the previous year.
• Almost all areas have the Supporting Families outcomes framework embedded in their early help case management system to some extent (97%) and many in social care (62%) and Family Hubs (66%).
• Data sharing is strongest across children바카라 사이트檚 services and weakest with health. This is similar to the previous year but there have been some improvements in police data sharing.
• Most areas have a data warehouse or data lake to bring data together. However, 23% of areas do not have either.
• Over the past 4 years, there has been a steady increase in automated data matching and a corresponding decrease in manual data matching.
• About half of areas (52%) give practitioners access to data in some form. 28% provide regularly updated data for internal practitioners and 8% for partners too.

Peer support to improve early help system maturity and data maturity

In 2023 the Supporting Families programme funded a project to provide more direct support through peer support to areas to improve early help system maturity and data maturity of areas.

Following a competitive bidding process, Staffordshire and Lincolnshire were awarded the contract to deliver system maturity peer support. They were funded to work with twenty areas, delivering direct support to authorities needing support to progress the maturity of their early help system in line with the Early Help System Guide (EHSG) self- assessments.

Somerset was successful in bidding to work with thirty-nine areas to improve data sharing through guidance, developing Data Sharing Agreement (DSA) templates and sharing lessons learnt from their own experiences and developing the maturity of their data infrastructure.

These projects ran until September 2024.

The overall cost for all projects was 拢300,000 (拢125,000 on system maturity and 拢175,000 on data maturity).

Measures of success

These projects aimed to impact the programme바카라 사이트檚 performance through a number of measures.

System maturity:

• Increasing the number of successful family outcomes achieved. 78% of areas receiving peer support increased the number of successful family outcomes compared with the same quarter one year ago. (This is based on areas that submitted outcomes in this quarter. Two areas outcomes are unknown as they submit as Greater Manchester Combined Authority rather than individually and two areas didn바카라 사이트檛 make a submission in that quarter.)
• Increasing the maturity of early help systems and embedding whole family working, evidenced through improving EHSG scores. The work focussed mainly on the workforce, leadership and community indicators in the EHSG. 50% of areas demonstrated improved workforce scores. 61% of areas demonstrated improved communities scores. 72% demonstrated improved leadership scores.

Data maturity:

• Increasing the data maturity of areas evidenced through increased open data feeds. Whilst only one area reported having an increased number of open data feeds in place, progress has been made with data sharing agreements being developed and templates and guidance being readily available for all areas to use.

• Increasing data scores in the EHSG. Around half of all areas receiving data support reported improved data scores in their EHSGs. Additionally, all areas who provided feedback following completion of the support reported positive progress in their planning and development.

Research and evaluation update

Spend evaluation

The Supporting Families programme commissioned IFF research to look at local spending on early help services. This research aimed to understand how local areas are spending early help funding, including Supporting Families funding, and how and why this may differ between local areas.

The research has included feasibility studies, case studies with a number of areas, developing a spend mapping tool and conducting a survey of local authority spend. The research has found significant variation around spending on different services across local authorities. The final report is being prepared. This will be published on gov.uk in the coming months and findings will be shared with local areas.

Systemic practice trial

The Supporting Families programme commissioned a trial of systemic practice in early help services. Systemic practice is based on Systemic Family Therapy. This is a long- established approach for psychologists and psychotherapists who work with families. The approach addresses family issues by looking at relationships, improving communication, mutual understanding and emotional support and coping skills. It treats the family as a unit and considers social context (background, economic status and culture).

The trial is being run by Coram, the Institute of Family Therapy and Ecorys. It aims to test whether training keyworkers in systemic practice improves outcomes for families. The supplier has provided training and support to local areas to implement systemic practice and record data. Six areas are implementing systemic practice and others will form a comparison group and receive training later. Findings will be shared in a report at the end of the trial in 2026-27.

Whole system change: a case study from one local area

Norfolk County Council바카라 사이트檚 holistic approach to early intervention

Norfolk바카라 사이트檚 early help system has undergone significant transformation, largely influenced by the Supporting Families programme. This case study explores the evolution of the system and practice, highlighting key changes, achievements, and the impact of the programme on supporting vulnerable families.

Prior to 2012, Norfolk바카라 사이트檚 early help system was characterised by fragmented services and a reactive approach to family support. The introduction of the Supporting Families programme marked the beginning of a shift towards a more proactive, integrated and holistic approach to early intervention.

When Norfolk introduced a practitioner led early intervention offer, they called it early help. After a short while, they recognised that this would seem to partners that the local authority alone was leading and delivering all early help support in Norfolk. They recognised this was not sustainable as need outweighed the capacity of the service and was not correct, as partners did deliver a wide range of early help support. As a result, they implemented an Early Help Partnership Board and strategy which focussed on making early help everyone바카라 사이트檚 business. Particularly, Norfolk provided support through coaching and training to partners to support them in delivering early help. They continue to sustain this offer from their Community and Partnership Service.

In 2021, Norfolk refreshed its prevention and early help strategy and governance to deepen the focus upon prevention and early help, recognising the importance of community, place, access and collaboration as important mechanisms to deliver prevention and early help. Utilising the Early Help System Guide self-assessment framework provided the partnership with the priorities and deliverables to develop a new refreshed and ambitious strategy. The governance and vision of the strategy was endorsed and led by their Children and Young People Strategic Alliance, with the ambition to ensure that all Children and Young People in Norfolk FLOURISH. This was supported by an outcomes framework informed by children and young people, whilst encompassing the principles of the Supporting Families Outcomes Framework.

Undertaking this activity alongside Norfolk바카라 사이트檚 leaders, partners and commissioners, in addition to encompassing feedback from families, supported a true whole system evaluation that recognised strengths and areas for development with joint ownership and delivery.

Norfolk have learned that transformation must be taken at the pace of partners and stakeholders and not rush ahead without them. Foundations must be built first and this is about developing strong relationships and principles of practice. By prioritising prevention and integrating their approach, Norfolk have created a more efficient and effective system that is better equipped to support children and family needs. This is now

being brought to fruition through the introduction of their approach to Family Help and Family Hubs.

Norfolk have embraced and embedded a strong commitment to practice principles that aligned with the vision of Supporting Families and are:

• Child centred 바카라 사이트� We always capture the voice of children and strive to understand their lived experience, shaping everything we do around what children and young people tell us.
• Outcome focused - We listen to what children, young people and families tell us they want to achieve and work together with partners towards these goals.
• Relationship based - We work to build trusted relationships with children, young people and families, as well as with our colleagues and partners.
• Strengths orientated - We identify the strengths of children, families and partners and build on them to be inclusive and create positive change.
• Whole family - We think about family, in the widest sense, in all the work we do.
• Whole system - We work in partnership to do the right thing for children, young people and families, regardless of organisational boundaries.

These principles, being the key ingredients to practice that achieve outcomes to support children and young people to flourish, will follow Norfolk into their next phase of transformation to deliver against the Families First Partnership Programme.

Prevention and early help must be a partnership approach, in which there are agreed shared outcomes and tangible benefits for all partners held together with a shared vision that families and children remain at the heart of everything. Those investments will not only improve the experience of families but also deliver great outcomes and positive benefits. This is also evidenced in their ability to achieve 100% of Supporting Families claims for four consecutive years 바카라 사이트� something that Norfolk, it바카라 사이트檚 leaders and communities are proud of.

There has been a decline in the need for statutory intervention with reduced numbers of children in care and those subject to child protection plans. When Norfolk began the Supporting Families programme more children were supported at a high level of statutory social care intervention than at early help. The Supporting Families programme assisted Norfolk to improve their early help offer and now more children are supported at early help than at statutory social care, reversing the trend.

Norfolk바카라 사이트檚 advice would be, don바카라 사이트檛 do it alone; reach out and learn how other local authorities deliver their services and look for evidence of what works well. Be patient, it takes time to build strong partnerships and even longer to see the benefits from having these. Don바카라 사이트檛 give up, take small steps, be ambitious, work in collaboration and listen to what families have to say about how they experience being supported. Above all, celebrate and continuously strive to improve.

How whole family working helps families with multiple/complex needs: a case study

Names and identifying features have been changed to preserve confidentiality.

Background

Hannah (8) was subject to a special guardianship order (a private law order made by the family court) and living with her grandmother, Sarah. Hannah was displaying challenging behaviour in school. She had been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and was under the care of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).

Sarah was struggling to manage and this was impacting on her mental health. She was also finding Hannah바카라 사이트檚 behaviour and emotional dysregulation at home challenging and was seeking support to help improve their family relationships.

The CAMHS team made a referral to the Family Help Work Practitioner (FHWP) Early Help team.

A practitioner from the team, Lauren, arranged to meet the family and discuss the support they could offer them and to jointly agree the outcomes they would work towards.

Lauren accessed up-to-date information within the case management system and saw any previous history of the family바카라 사이트檚 involvement with children바카라 사이트檚 services and early help. This enabled her to appropriately assess the level of need for the family and identify any risk at the point of allocation.

Work undertaken with the family

Lauren worked with Hannah and Sarah to complete a whole family plan with focused outcomes based on the family바카라 사이트檚 presenting issues.

Lauren joined Hannah and Sarah at meetings with CAMHS and worked directly with Hannah around regulation of her emotions and how to develop coping strategies.

Lauren also worked with Hannah바카라 사이트檚 school to discuss strategies that Hannah could respond to at home. By attending meetings with the school and the family, together they were able to devise a robust plan around Hannah바카라 사이트檚 Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) to support with her challenging behaviour and ensure she could continue to access education.

Lauren completed direct work with Sarah around routines, boundaries and de-escalation strategies. She also brought in Carl (Hannah바카라 사이트檚 dad) to discuss with them both safety planning around supervised contacts. Lauren gathered Hannah바카라 사이트檚 views and held sharing sessions with her and Sarah to improve communication. They then jointly developed family rules for the whole family.

Lauren helped Sarah find contacts and access support groups for kinship and SEND carers. She also shared information about the post adoption support fund that the family could access.

In addition to mental and emotional support, Lauren바카라 사이트檚 help enabled the family to access the correct financial benefits, including Disability Living Allowance.

Outcomes achieved

• Hannah was able to better understand and manage her emotions following her diagnosis and deploy coping strategies when required.

• Hannah바카라 사이트檚 school put measures in place to support her SEND needs and enable her to access education.

• The direct family support from Lauren resulted in improved family relationships between Hannah, Sarah and Carl.
• Safety planning enabled supervised contact between Hannah and Carl to be put in place.
• Sarah could now access support from kinship and SEND support and consider accessing post adoption support funding.
• The family had improved access to financial support.

• Lauren also helped Sarah obtain an 바카라 사이트渆ase card바카라 사이트�, which enabled her to access regular swimming sessions for Hannah over the summer holidays.

• Hannah has successfully remained within her educational provision without requiring a more specialist placement.

Feedback

Sarah said that Lauren, the Early Help practitioner, was great and that Hannah really liked her.

Sarah felt that having the whole family plan co-ordinated by the EHWP helped her access the right support she needed for Hannah, whose behaviour had improved.

Chapter 3 - Successful family outcomes 2024-25

Successful family outcomes are the way that the programme records positive and sustainable change in families. In 2024-25, the payment by results mechanism (whereby local authorities received funding by submitting claims) was ended. All remaining funding was released to local authorities following quarter 2. Local authorities have continued to submit claims to monitor and report on successful family outcomes. The figures in this report combine the payment by results outcomes and the successful outcomes reported by Earned Autonomy local authorities, Families First for Children Pathfinders and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.

The latest figures submitted up to the end of March 2024 show that a total of 104,761 families have achieved successful family outcomes in 2024-25. The annual allocation for 2024-25 was 130,054 successful family outcomes, which means that areas have achieved 81% of the target. The annual allocation was 24% higher than in 2023-24 which was 105,149.

Validation of claims

A validation process is in place to ensure that local programmes are meeting the national programme requirements. It is also referred to as the assurance or 바카라 사이트榮pot check바카라 사이트� process.

The assurance process seeks to ensure outcomes meet the criteria set out in guidance and align with the national outcomes framework. This is mostly undertaken through a desk based review of cases but can also include, where appropriate, a visit to the authority to view evidence of outcomes, review how local authorities use their case management and data systems, meet with lead practitioners and partners to understand how whole family working is being embedded within the area, and how early help is being delivered. The national team offer support and guidance to the local authority.

The national team took a risk-based approach to assurance of the programme. This approach enabled support to be directed where it was most needed. Indicators used to determine local authorities that might benefit from an assurance visit included:

• An unexpected number of successful family outcomes.
• Issues identified during a previous engagement.
• No engagement for a significant length of time.
• No assurance checks for a significant amount of time.
• A local authority identified as needing performance improvement support.

(These indicators are not exhaustive and are not looked at in isolation).

In 2024-25 fifteen areas were selected to be checked. 150 cases were looked at, of which 139 met all the criteria for a successful family outcome claim. Eleven were identified as not fully meeting the criteria, despite representing good outcomes for the family.

Annex A: Successful family outcomes by local authority

Figures are capped at 100% of allocated family outcomes, some areas submitted additional outcomes above their allocation.

Table 2: Successful family outcomes achieved by area

Local authority	Maximum funded outcomes	Total outcomes achieved	Percentage achieved
Barking and Dagenham	1014	861	85%
Barnet	689	689	100%
Barnsley	737	737	100%
Bath and North East	聽	聽	聽
Somerset	204	204	100%
BCP	698	578	83%
Bedford	416	200	48%
Bexley	464	68	15%
Birmingham	4873	4193	86%
Blackburn with Darwen	624	296	47%
Blackpool	624	225	36%
Bracknell Forest	147	147	100%
Bradford	2181	1906	87%
Brent	945	945	100%
Brighton and Hove	551	391	71%
Bristol	1222	1134	93%
Bromley	542	542	100%
Buckinghamshire	620	397	64%
Calderdale	525	495	94%
Cambridgeshire	1032	900	87%
Camden	512	445	87%
Central Bedfordshire	407	407	100%
Cheshire East	594	522	88%
Cheshire West and Chester	676	676	100%
Cornwall	1214	898	74%
Coventry	971	564	58%
Croydon	1014	1014	100%
Cumberland	507	115	23%
Darlington	243	128	53%
Derby	798	507	64%
Derbyshire	1574	1574	100%

Local authority	Maximum funded outcomes	Total outcomes achieved	Percentage achieved
Devon	1240	1049	85%
Doncaster	1027	1027	100%
Dorset	525	525	100%
Dudley	815	537	66%
Durham	1522	1522	100%
Ealing	936	936	100%
East Riding of Yorkshire	525	388	74%
East Sussex	1001	862	86%
Enfield	1118	1118	100%
Essex	2805	2228	79%
Gateshead	551	384	70%
Gloucestershire	975	975	100%
Greater Manchester	9025	6685	74%
Greenwich	832	832	100%
Hackney	897	897	100%
Halton	438	438	100%
Hammersmith and Fulham	394	394	100%
Hampshire	1777	1250	70%
Haringey	832	832	100%
Harrow	394	194	49%
Hartlepool	312	311	100%
Havering	447	305	68%
Herefordshire	321	276	86%
Hertfordshire	1834	1467	80%
Hillingdon	659	659	100%
Hounslow	793	793	100%
Isle of Wight	277	235	85%
Islington	585	340	58%
Kensington and Chelsea	321	279	87%
Kent	3403	3403	100%
Kingston upon Hull	1140	1140	100%
Kingston upon Thames	247	247	100%
Kirklees	1205	247	20%
Knowsley	715	539	75%
Lambeth	780	647	83%
Lancashire	3173	1143	36%
Leeds	2540	2102	83%
Leicester	1231	848	69%

Local authority	Maximum funded outcomes	Total outcomes achieved	Percentage achieved
Leicestershire	928	799	86%
Lewisham	1101	1101	100%
Lincolnshire	1608	1608	100%
Liverpool	2154	2154	100%
Luton	642	475	74%
Medway Towns	655	655	100%
Merton	308	116	38%
Middlesbrough	663	627	95%
Milton Keynes	507	267	53%
Newcastle upon Tyne	837	587	70%
Newham	1201	1157	96%
Norfolk	1838	1838	100%
North and West	聽	聽	聽
Northamptonshire	1561	695	45%
North East Lincolnshire	529	365	69%
North Lincolnshire	368	368	100%
North Somerset	325	99	30%
North Tyneside	455	328	72%
North Yorkshire	941	819	87%
Northumberland	694	380	55%
Nottingham	1140	551	48%
Nottinghamshire	1760	1760	100%
Oxfordshire	876	755	86%
Peterborough	633	633	100%
Plymouth	707	303	43%
Portsmouth	590	590	100%
Reading	342	251	73%
Redbridge	650	563	87%
Redcar and Cleveland	381	209	55%
Richmond upon Thames	217	217	100%
Rotherham	850	559	66%
Rutland	30	30	100%
Sandwell	1283	986	77%
Sefton	663	663	100%
Sheffield	1652	1652	100%
Shropshire	529	529	100%
Slough	460	394	86%
Solihull	368	127	35%

Local authority	Maximum funded outcomes	Total outcomes achieved	Percentage achieved
Somerset	1036	1036	100%
South Gloucestershire	342	342	100%
South Tyneside	520	520	100%
Southampton	659	576	87%
Southend-on-Sea	399	286	72%
Southwark	837	837	100%
St. Helens	555	555	100%
Staffordshire	1595	1595	100%
Stockton-on-Tees	624	506	81%
Stoke-on-Trent	993	601	61%
Suffolk	1422	781	55%
Sunderland	854	566	66%
Surrey	1361	1308	96%
Sutton	334	275	82%
Swindon	473	473	100%
Telford and Wrekin	464	375	81%
Thurrock	447	447	100%
Torbay	355	21	6%
Tower Hamlets	863	664	77%
Wakefield	1114	552	50%
Walsall	936	662	71%
Waltham Forest	876	859	98%
Wandsworth	555	555	100%
Warrington	425	244	57%
Warwickshire	915	219	24%
West Berkshire	173	104	60%
West Sussex	1283	1283	100%
Westminster	377	343	91%
Westmorland and Furness	356	185	52%
Wiltshire	672	672	100%
Windsor and Maidenhead	139	133	96%
Wirral	1027	923	90%
Wokingham	104	104	100%
Wolverhampton	906	536	59%
Worcestershire	1153	480	42%
York	234	121	52%