Improving support for families facing multiple and complex problems

The announcement in this month’s spending review of an extra £200 million to expand the Supporting Families Programme over the next three years is a welcome and much-needed injection of cash into an early help system under significant strain.

The right support can help families to manage a range of challenges. This additional investment creates an important opportunity. It can improve family relationships and wellbeing. It can support children’s development, leading to improvements across a range of important child outcomes, including mental and physical health, and educational attainment. And it has the potential to reduce the risk of abuse and neglect, keep families together, and avoid the need for children’s social care services to become involved.

As well as providing vital resource to increase the capacity of services, funding the programme for three years also offers an opportunity to build much-needed knowledge. It enables us to test the specific questions of how, and to what extent, targeted whole family support can improve outcomes for children and families, reduce the risk of child maltreatment, and in turn reduce demand and financial pressures within the children’s social care system.

Through this investment, the government has recognised the potential of early help. And particularly of the Supporting Families Programme, to improve the lives of children and families facing the toughest challenges, to keep families together, reduce risk to children, and manage demands on children’s social care services. The investment is significant, and it is essential that we capitalise on the opportunity that it presents. This is the moment for a serious and sustained focus on both using the evidence that we do have, to make sure the programme is as strong as it can be, and on testing and understanding the impact that effective family support can achieve.