First phase of the evaluation of the Families First for Children Pathfinder published.

A high-level overview of the first phase of the evaluation of the Families First for Children Pathfinder (FFCP) has been published.

The FFCP was established by the Department for Education (DfE) to test the deliverability of key recommendations from some of the most significant reforms to how children and families are supported and protected – the 2022 Independent Review of Children’s Social Care (Care Review) and The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s National Review into Child Protection in England (2022). It was designed to improve support and protection for children and families through earlier intervention, stronger multi-agency collaboration, and a more integrated approach to service delivery.

The key reforms delivered and tested through the FFCP are:

• Safeguarding Partners: focused on strengthening Multi Agency Safeguarding Arrangements (MASA), establishment of expert-led Multi Agency Child Protection Teams (MACPT) and an increased role for Education in MASA

• Family Help: Combining the strengths of targeted Early Help and Section 17 (Child in Need) work into a single, seamless and multi-disciplinary Family Help service. 

• Child Protection: Focus on dedicated and skilled multi-agency child protection teams comprising practitioners from a range of disciplines, including social workers with greater child protection expertise and experience.

• Family Networks: A system-wide ‘families first’ culture involving a greater role for family networks, involving earlier use the wider family in decision making at an earlier stage throughout the system through Family Group Decision Making (FGDM) and introduction of the new Family Network Support Packages (FNSPs) to provide practical and financial support to enable family networks to help children stay safe and thrive at home.

This report captures the early findings and incudes case study analysis in six of the ten local areas selected for the FFCP implementation.

See more Families first for children pathfinder: implementation and process evaluation report