Salford Strategic Partnership Conference
31 January 2012
Questions from Question Wall
For Jon Stonehouse (Deputy Director Children’s Services, Salford City Council) and Mat Ainsworth (Strategic Manager, Skills and Work Commissioning Unit, Salford City Council)
1. Question: What is being done to support family unity, to prevent family discord, to break unhealthy familial cycles and to prevent youth offending?
Response: There has been a shift in general terms towards a more whole family focus rather than work only with individual family members. This refocus has been encouraged nationally through recent policy and research documents such as Think Family (http://www.aft.org.uk/home/documents/think_family_life_chances_report.pdf) and Grasping the Nettle (http://www.c4eo.org.uk/themes/earlyintervention/default.aspx?themeid=12&accesstypeid=1)
Specifically in Salford we have a brief intervention service which works intensively for up to eight weeks with whole families to prevent breakdown and exclusion:
§ We offer family group conferences that enable and encourage families to solve problems and put plans in place themselves to improve relationships and outcomes.
§ The parenting team delivers evidence based programmes across the city which teach and coach families to engage positively with each other and set appropriate boundaries.
§ European Social Fund (ESF) funded providers can offer couple counseling to those families who need it.
§ We work in partnership with probation and the Drugs and Alcohol Action Team (DAAT) to deliver group work to the most vulnerable families and to reduce domestic abuse and the impact of drug and alcohol use.
In relation to the prevention of offending behaviour:-
§ Access to youth centres providing positive activities and places for young people to go, diverting young people from becoming involved in anti-social behaviour and offending:
o Detached teams target areas with higher levels of anti-social behaviour or youth crime, engaging young people at risk of offending. They engage them into positive activities and/or recruit them for targeted group work with the Integrated Youth Support Service (IYSS) and/or other providers eg, The Prince’s Trust, GEARS, Manchester United Foundation, and often work in partnership with these and other community and voluntary sector partners. IYSS staff attend Local Partnership Delivery Groups and Community Safety Referral Teams to identify areas and individuals causing concerns in a neighbourhood in order to directly target places and people to reduce and prevent crime and anti-social behaviour.
o IYSS offer one-to-one casework and group work in a range of settings including schools. Issues addressed include anger management, risky behaviours, including drug and alcohol misuse, risk factors which can lead to offending.
o Young Parents workers deliver interventions to reduce and/or prevent domestic abuse among vulnerable young people.
o Team Around the Schools target young people at risk of poor outcomes, including becoming involved in offending. Criteria for referral include poor attendance, challenging and risky behaviours, factors which increase the likelihood of offending.
o IYSS work in a range of setting and with a variety of providers targeting vulnerable young people. Through personal and social development and therapeutic interventions, we work to reduce the risk factors of offending, increase protective factors and build resilience.
o Youth workers build relationships of trust and mutual respect giving young people someone to confide in and providing a positive influence in their lives, raising aspirations and improving outcomes for young people.
For further information please contact Sue Myers, Head of Early Intervention and Prevention Services, Salford City Council ().
2. Question: What are the figures and numbers aged 16-25 who do not claim benefits and how do you work with them?
Response: There are 392 16 to 19 years olds in the city who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) and 211 whose status is unknown. In addition there are approximately 2,465 18 to 24 years out of work and in receipt of Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA).
It is clear that young people have been disproportionately affected by the economic downturn with rates of unemployment for young people double that of 5 years ago.
The government has recognised the need to respond to this risk and launched a number of national schemes, such as the pupil premium and the Youth Contract that includes a range of interventions including employer wage incentives, work experience, apprenticeships, training and learning programmes. These need to be maximised to ensure improved outcomes for Salford residents.
Locally we are going further. We have developed the Future Jobs Programme as a legacy of the previous government’s Future Jobs Fund, which had proven to be extremely successful in Salford. The legacy programme offers a range of unpaid work experience and paid work placements that aim to provide participants with the skills and competencies to move into sustained jobs and apprenticeships.
The NEET design group, which operates in East Salford, has provided a partnership response to issues effecting young people, specifically those who are NEET or at risk of becoming NEET. This response has included the development of the Passport Programme which worked with this customer groups providing participants with the support and motivation to move them on to positive destinations e.g. employment and further education. Learning from this work has informed the development of further engagement and support activities.
For further information please contact Mat Ainsworth, Strategic Manager, Skills and Work Commissioning Unit, Salford City Council ().
3. Question: Where are older people on your life-cycle approach? They are very important to family structures and are always forgotten. Grandparents have much to contribute.
Response: The Better Off in Salford Strategy, which is a strategy to end family poverty and improve life chances sets out the Partnerships approach to tackling poverty in the City.
The strategy describes an approach that is about ending family poverty, not just child poverty, as we do not believe we can address child poverty without tackling the causes and effects of poverty for families as a whole. The strategy is set around a life cycle, focusing on how we can work together to put families at the heart of everything we do. The strategy is about trying to break the cycle of poverty through early intervention and prevention as well as delivering a targeted response to complex issues faced by individuals, families and communities in the city.
Throughout the strategy, we purposefully use the word adults in recognition of the role of parents, guardians and winder family members, including grandparents, in supporting children and young people.
For further information please contact Mat Ainsworth, Strategic Manager, Skills and Work Commissioning Unit, Salford City Council ().
4. Question: Nick Page workshop – why only officers and elected members looking at this, why no involvement of community members?
Response: Nick Page, Strategic Director for Salford City Council’s Children’s Services is leading the Troubled Families work in Salford. Nick has established a small working party comprising officers from the City Council and a range of partners including the Police and Salford University. The work is being reported through a range of partnerships including the Place Board, Children’s Trust and Community Safety Partnership.
Community and voluntary sector representatives are members of these partnerships and should cascade information to their partner organisations as well as feeding the views of the sector back into these partnership meetings.
For further information please contact Mat Ainsworth, Strategic Manager, Skills and Work Commissioning Unit, Salford City Council ().
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