Children’s Social Care Reforms and Sandwell’s Family Help Pilot

Through the Families First Programme, the government is embarking on the most significant overhaul of children’s social care in a generation. These reforms aim to shift the system much more towards earlier interventions, so all children and families receive the right support at the right time and fewer children need to come into our care. For those children who need to be in our care, the reforms also place greater emphasis on kinship care and improving outcomes for care-experienced young people. 

During our workforce sessions last year, we shared information on these reforms; now that legislation is going through Parliament.

Central to the reforms is the introduction of a new 'Family Help' model, which will see families benefiting through more local, multi-agency services. The expectation is that by bringing together targeted early help and children in need services, families can receive a more integrated and locally responsive support that help prevent them entering the child protection system.

Here in Sandwell, we are learning from the regional and national Pathfinder Programmes and have been developing a pilot to test out new ways of working that are in line with the Families First Programme.

The pilot will take place in Oldbury and will involve working closely with partners to test new ways of delivering more integrated, community-based support.

This pilot is an exciting opportunity to shape how we work with families in the future, building on their strengths and reducing escalation to child protection services.