Draft Strategic Plan

HOME-START MERTON 4 YEAR BUSINESS PLAN

CONTENTS PAGE

1. SUMMARYpg 2-3

1. INTRODUCTIONpg4

1. HOME-START MERTON’S MISSION, pg4-6

AIMS, OBJECTIVES AND VALUES

3.1Mission Statementpg4

3.2Aims, Objectives and Values of the servicepg5

3.3Principles underpinning our workpg6

1. A KEY LOCAL PROVIDERpg7-9

4.1 A Strong Track Recordpg7

4.2 Home-Start Merton today pg8

4.3 Quality Assurancepg9

1. THE CURRENT CLIMATEpg10-11

5.1 Delivering on National Targetspg10

5.2 Delivering on Local Prioritiespg11

1. DEVELOPMENT PLAN 2006 – 2010pg12-16

6.1 Summarypg12

6.2 Key Aimspg13-16

7. FUNDING STRATEGYpg17-18

8. CONCLUSIONpg18

APPENDIX 1pg19-20

16 Quality Asssurance Standards

HOME-START MERTON BUSINESS PLAN 2006-2010

Summary

1. SUMMARY

This Business Plan reflects Homestart Merton’s commitment to the future delivery of services to children and families at risk or in need of additional support. Key services as outlined include a support care package individually tailored to the needs of each family:-

• home visiting support using trained volunteers;
• our group work programme which currently has 3 elements –

-our Family Group

-our Teenage Mothers Project

-our Fathers Group

In the last year alone Home-Start Merton provided services to 120 families which included:-

• 157 children under 5
• 68 children over 5
• 8 children on the child protection register
• 29 teenage parents
• 23 children with a disability
• 62 lone parent families
• 15 adults with a disability.
• 48% of all families supported came from black/minority ethnic communities

Support needs cover a wide range of issues and include: isolation; domestic violence; family breakdown; teenage pregnancy; managing children’s behaviour; poverty; refugee and asylum issues; adults and children with learning difficulties and work with families where the parent has mental health issues.

A large proportion of the families referred and supported by Home-Start live in the East of the Borough, which includes wardsdesignated as areas of deprivation i.e. Pollards Hill, Cricket Green and Lavender wards, with many families struggling on a very low income and living in social housing and inadequate private rented accommodation.

Home-Start Merton provides services that contribute directly towards a range of local priorities and targets as outlinedin the Children and Young People’s Plan (CYPP). “We believe that services should be focused on prevention and early intervention rather than only dealing with the consequences of difficulties in children’s lives.” (Pg 6 Children & Young People Plan 2006-09). Home-Start Merton believes we have a significant role to play in the delivery of all 9 Strategic Aims.

We envisage an opportunity for a particularly strong partnership in the delivery of Aim 4: Promoting the safeguarding of children and young people and Aim 5: Raising attainment and reducing educational inequalities.

CYPP Strategic Aim 4:We have:

“Established and will continue to provide a range of preventative services via both statutory and voluntary sector agencies that offer services targeted at helping prevent crisis that lead to family breakdown and either reception into care of escalation of concerns to the Child Protection threshold.”

We will:

“Work in partnership to deal with the early signs of concern within families that may lead to an incident where a child or young person may be harmed.”

“Work with community and voluntary sector children/young people/family support services to sustain and further develop prevention and early intervention projects.”

CYPP Strategic Aim 5:We will:

“Work through children’s Centres at a neighbourhood level to bring agencies together in providing holistic developmental support to young children and their families, including the encouragement of bonding and parental understanding of children’s development.”

The government have laid out their plans for children and families in the Change for Children programme. The emphasis is on the development of preventative work and early interventions with specific themes aroundthe 5 outcomes as laid down in the Every Child Matters agenda.

The Business Plan is laid out over 8 sections as follows:-

• Section 2: Provides an introduction to the work undertaken by Home-Start Merton
• Section 3: Outlines the charities mission, aims, objectives and principles of working
• Section 4: Outlines our role and achievements as a key local provider
• Section 5: Outlines our role in supporting the delivery of national and local priorities
• Section 6: Our Development Plan setting out our 7 Key Aims
• Section 7: Sets out our funding Strategy
• Section 8: Reinforces our role in the future delivery of early interventionfamily support

The next four years present many opportunities and challenges for Home-Start Merton with the emerging Children’s Trusts and changing role of the Voluntary and Community Sector. The emphasis within this plan is on the integration of services within the emerging Children’s Centres and ExtendedSchools, continuing to meet the needs of local children and families in a preventative way and sustaining longer term funding. The plan reflects the charities commitment to playing an active part in local partnerships and supporting children in having the best start in life.

2. INTRODUCTION

The role of parent is perceived to be one of the most complex and challenging tasks that an adult may embark on during their lifetime – often approached without any prior training, continuously changing in response to the child’s own life cycle. It is within this environment that children’s behaviour and attitudes are re-shaped to enable them to cope in ‘the world at large’. Families are, to adopt a widely used metaphor, ‘the building blocks of our society’.

There have been an unprecedented number of reports and discussions on the family agreeing that all is not wellwith the contemporary family structure. There is consequently a need for voluntary and statutory agencies to work in partnership to ensure that families receive effective support to enable parents to fulfil their role.

Established in June 1993, Home-Start Merton is well into its second decade of providing support to families who may be in need of support at a critical period in their parenting. Support is offered by trained volunteers who are experienced parents.

To Home-Start, every family is special and we respond to each family’s needs through a combination of home-visiting support, group work and social events.

3.HOME-START MERTON’S MISSION,

AIMS, OBJECTIVES AND VALUES

3.1 Mission Statement

Home-Start Merton believes that every parent should

have the support they need in order to give their

children the best possible start in life.

We aim to work in partnership with parents by supporting and encouraging them through the early years of family life.

3.2.Aims, Objectives and Values

3.3Principles Underpinning our Work

The success of our service is

based on 4 key foundations:-

1 Focussing on children under 5

Home-Start Merton focuses its support on theearly years, the most crucial time in a child’sdevelopment.

2 Supporting families in their own homes

Trained volunteers visit families in their own homes where the dignity and identity of parents and their children is protected, the individual needs of the family can be met and a parent’s strengths encouraged – essentially parents supporting parents. Volunteers are friendly, approachable people whom others parents trust and rely on to listen without being judgemental and can help parents regain confidence in their own abilities as parents.

3 Local Management

Home Start Merton is locally managed with the support of local volunteer trustees. We believe that families do better when they have the support of a strong community around them.

4 A Shared Ethos and Values

All our people, trustees, staff and volunteers work within and demonstrate the essential Home-Start ethos based on choice, openness,flexibility, partnership, encouragement, responsiveness and enjoyment.

4. A KEY LOCAL PROVIDER

4.1A Strong track record

The environment in which the organisation operates is one of continuous change.

Home-Start Merton have over a number of years taken a leading role in the provision of volunteer led family support services in the London Borough of Merton. We are tremendously proud of our achievements which include:-

4.2 Home-Start Merton Today

• Family Group
• Teenage Mothers Project .
• Fathers Project

4.3 Quality Assurance

Home-Start Merton is an organisation that is highly committed to developing the quality of its services.

The Home-Start Quality Assurance system has been developed by The Charities Evaluation Service specifically for Home-Start. It is a bespsoke system incorporating all the elements of a practical quality assurance system for small organisations (PQASSO), Investors in People (IIP) and the Charities Evaluation Services (CES). The system has also been rooted in the expressed needs of those working across Home-Start and its existing best practice, integrating all elements of Home-Start’s Policy & Practice Guide. The result is a quality assurance system that puts quality support for families at its heart.

Home-Start’s quality standards recognise that quality is about learning what you are doing well and doing it better. They also recognise that quality means finding out what may need to change to ensure we continue to meet the needs of families. The process of comparing our practice against the Home-Start quality standards in a systematic way means that our scheme is engaged in implementing a ‘quality assurance system’, which will result in continuous improvement and high standards of support for families.

Like all Home-Start schemes, Home-Start Merton are externally reviewed every three years. The review addresses all elements contained within the 16 quality standards as outlined below. Information gathered by self assessment between reviews is used as evidence that Home-Start Agreement requirements are being met. Home-Start quality assurance standards as set out below give a clear picture of how Home-Start Merton is working, and are useful planning tools for all operations.

Our last external review took place in 2004.

THE 16 QUALITY STANDARDS (See appendix 1 for detailed description)

1. Governance
2. Planning for quality

1. Promoting children’s welfare
2. Equal opportunities and diversity
3. Confidentiality

1. Managing Home-Start
2. Managing staff
3. Managing volunteers
4. Learning and development
5. Quality and scheme development
6. Managing money and resources
7. Health and safety
8. Monitoring and evaluation

1. Supporting families
2. Working with other agencies
3. Working in the wider context

5. THE CURRENT CLIMATE

5.1Delivering on National Targets

Central Government have put into place two key strategies in relation to provision of services for children and their families:-

• Every Child Matters (Dept of Education and Skills)
• National Service Framework for Children’s Health & Social Care (Dept of Health)

These strategies have been merged into what is now being referred to as the ECM: CfC Outcomes Framework. The focus of the framework is to provide appropriate services for all children in need or at risk but with underpinning themes of:

• Supporting parents as primary carers;
• Alleviating poverty as the primary source of difficulty for families

The National Service Framework for Childrentakes account of the findings of the Victoria Climbie Inquiry and forthcoming guidance on children at risk. The three key objectives are:-

• to put children and their families at the centre of care
• to develop effective partnership working so that the needs of the child are always considered
• to deliver needs led services

The aim of the NSF is to ensure that services are of a high quality, appropriate and accessible when they are needed. Home-Start Merton seeks to provide real choice for families. All of our work is based on honest communication. We aim to empower the family to start to take control of their lives and encourage them every step of the way. Families identify outcomes for themselves during the initial home-visit and in reviews. Key areas include:-

• Promoting health and well being
• Identifying needs and intervening early
• Supporting parenting
• Child, young person and family centred services
• Growing up into adulthood with appropriate support and services
• Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people

Every Child Matters identifies the following five key outcomes for children and young people:-

* Be Healthy * Stay Safe * Enjoy and Achieve

* Make a Positive Contribution * Achieve Economic Well-being

* based on the following key goals *

• The vision and aspirations for better outcomes and safeguards for children and young people
• Focus on meeting individual and specific needs
• Agenda to improve quality of life, health, life chances, levels of achievement, reducing poverty and increasing safety
• High standards of services for all
• Identifying new ways of working
• Services developed which are integrated, high quality and cost effective including extended schools.

“Research into Home-Start and other home visiting schemes confirms that they produce benefits for parents and children. Home-Start raises self-confidence, improves social networks, reduces difficult behaviour on the part of the child and improves physical and mental health.”

Government Green Paper, ‘Every Child Matters’

5.2Delivering on Local Priorities

Children and young people make up 25% of Merton’s population, of which 20% live in areas in the 30% most deprived in the country. Much of our work is concentrated in wards which have been identified as “Neighbourhood Renewal” areas.

“We believe that services should be focused on prevention and early intervention rather than only dealing with the consequences of difficulties in children’s lives.”

Children & Young People Plan 2006-09 (pg.6)

Home-Start Merton is part of the local voluntary and community sector that is integral to any community. We believe that Home-Start Merton contribute to and play a part in:-