East Sussex County Council – Evaluation of the Family Keywork Programme

The East Sussex Family Keywork Programme was delivered by over 20 partners spanning universal and targeted services, and ranging across statutory and voluntary sector providers. The area was made up of five district and borough councils; Hastings, Rother, Eastbourne, Wealden and Lewes.

Across the county, a three-tiered delivery model was in operation (core, enhanced and intensive) providing support to families ranging from early, preventative help to enhanced and intensive support which may be delivered alongside complex social care cases.

 It was excellent to be working with an area where the commitment to the transformation of whole family work in East Sussex was embedded strategically prior to the influence of the national Troubled Families (TF) Programme. This meant that whilst the Payment By Results (PBR) element of the Keywork Programme had focused in on certain target areas, it was not the rationale for the transformation in delivery. Families identified as requiring a keywork service may be offered this type of support without having to meet the TF criteria.

We provided the evaluation over an eight-month period with the aim of establishing:

• The effectiveness of the implementation of the delivery model;
• The extent to which: the five components of effective family intervention; and evidenced based behaviour change approaches have been embedded in delivery;
• The link between effective family intervention, the effect on behaviour and the impact on outcomes including those relating to public health and safeguarding;
• The impact on a range of outcomes to include: Troubled Family Payment by Results (PBR); local priority indicators; safeguarding; and public health;
• The cost effectiveness of the key work model compared to previous models of support.