17 December 2024
Foundations, the What Works Centre for Children and Families, today welcomed the Government’s move to prioritise vulnerable children in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and its focus on prevention and early help, but cautioned that the new measures must be underpinned by the evidence about what works if they are to make a real difference to children’s lives.
Measures in the Bill include welcome investment in Family Help services and support to enable families to stay together safely, including a new requirement for local authorities to offer Family Group Decision Making (FGDM) when children are at risk of entering care, alongside more support for kinship families.
The Government’s move to require local authorities to use FGDM is underpinned by Foundations’ groundbreaking evidence on the effectiveness of Family Group Conferences (FGCs) in diverting children at risk from care.(1) Our study found that over 2,000 fewer children would enter the care system in a 12-month period if FGCs were rolled out in England, potentially saving over £150m within two years.
Dr Jo Casebourne, Chief Executive of Foundations said:
“We welcome the Bill’s focus on ensuring that vulnerable children can achieve and thrive, alongside the additional £250m investment in early help, which signals a key shift from crisis spend, particularly on residential care, to early intervention and prevention.
“The introduction in the Bill of proven approaches, including Family Group Conferences and support for kinship families, provides a blueprint for evidence-based policies that we know improve children’s life chances.
“But a greater focus on evidence-based services, particularly parenting support, is still needed to achieve the Bill’s aims for vulnerable children. We want to see well-evidenced parenting interventions integrated in early help for families and scaled up locally. Parenting support is one of the best levers that we have to ensure that vulnerable children thrive, and it must be a national priority.”
Contact: Charlotte Kelsted, Senior Press Officer: 07773 647 480 / charlotte.kelsted@foundations.org.uk
Notes to editors
- The full report can be accessed here. The evaluation was carried out by Coram’s Impact & Evaluation Team. Coram is one of the UK’s oldest children charities, supporting vulnerable children and families for nearly 300 years. Its Impact & Evaluation Team carries out research and evaluation projects in partnership with public sector and third sector organisations, and also works across the Coram group of charities to help teams to evaluate their effectiveness.
