Strengthening Families, Protecting Children: Family Valued

Many elements of the Family Valued model were implemented as planned in Darlington, even in the context of a global pandemic. Staff were largely positive about Family Valued and families largely had positive experiences with the FGC service and Edge of Care service (Keeping Families Together).

Practitioners reported using reflective practice and working more restoratively with families, supported by reflective supervision. Some teams, such as Early Help, reported already practising in a strengths-based or restorative approach. Practitioners working in Child Protection found it to be a bigger culture change. Staff expected to benefit from continued training and support to embed the model over time.

A central mechanism to the model was improved communication and relationship building with families. A whole system approach to culture change was also reported to be important. Potential benefits of Family Valued identified by staff and families included better quality practice and de-escalation of statutory involvement. This evidence is anecdotal at this point, and not evidence of impact.

This evaluation only captures the early stages of implementation of the Family Valued model. Interpretation of findings from this pilot evaluation should also consider that delivery of Family Valued in Darlington was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Based on what worked well in Darlington as well as ways in which delivery could be improved, when introducing Family Valued in a new area, local decision-makers should:

• Ensure training from the intervention developer is tailored to staff specialisms and includes opportunities to observe practice, and that a comprehensive training and information programme is delivered to partners
• Appoint key local roles to support and champion local rollout of the model
• Introduce restorative referral processes at the Front Door and for referral to restorative services such as FGC
• Provide clear communication about integration with existing practice models
• Ensure FGC core principles are adhered to, but also consider virtual communication with family members who might ordinarily be harder to involve
• Mitigate against potential unintended consequences by back-filling posts after internal recruitment to new roles and ensuring sufficient capacity for teams taking on additional work as a result of reforms.

To ensure longer-term sustainability of Family Valued, local decision-makers should:

• Focus on creating an organisation-wide culture change, with buy-in from managers and leaders, to help staff, particularly those working in Child Protection, to embrace and feel confident working restoratively
• Deliver continued modelling at a leadership level, as well as continued training, regular communications and development of further guidance to support embedding of restorative practice.