Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve support for early intervention family counselling.

The government’s statutory guidance, Working Together to Safeguard Children, is clear about the importance that we attach to preventative services. Providing help early, before issues and problems escalate, is more effective in promoting the welfare of children than reacting later. Working Together sets out that local agencies should work together to assess local needs for early help support and should design and deliver services to meet these needs. This includes delivering family counselling services where appropriate. It is right that decisions about the provision of services, including preventative, early help services, are taken locally by agencies that are best placed to plan provision, taking account of local needs and circumstances.

The Department for Education’s Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme was launched in October 2013 to catalyse the development of more effective ways of supporting vulnerable children to build evidence of what works. The Innovation Programme is supporting projects that deliver family group conferencing involving the family and extended family members to help make decisions about the best way to support the family and take care of their child. Leeds City Council has been funded through the Innovation Programme to embed restorative practice across children’s services, including introducing an entitlement to family group conferences. Over 600 family group conferences, led by trained co-ordinators were held in 2016, bringing extended family and friends together to find solutions to issues that affect young people and support them in implementing these solutions. The use of family group conferencing has led to savings of c£755 per family resulting from reduced average time spent in the social care system.