Families First Partnership Programme

The programme is designed to improve child protection and support by integrating targeted early help and multi-agency child protection services.

It aims to provide earlier, more consistent support by creating seamless 'family help' services and multi-agency child protection teams, keeping more children safe and out of the care system through better collaboration between social work, health, and education professionals. A key goal is to reform the system to be more family-centred and to ensure the right support is given at the right time.
 

Key components of this programme include:

• family help: merging targeted early help and "Child in Need" work (Section 17) into a single, seamless service delivered by multi-disciplinary teams
• multi-agency child protection teams (MACPT): forming dedicated, skilled child protection teams with practitioners from various disciplines to provide more focused and expert protection when needed
• family group decision making (FGDM): increasing the use of FGDM, which involves bringing families together with their wider network to make decisions about a child's future before care proceedings begin - Family Network Meetings (FNMs)
• system-wide reform: encouraging a whole-system change that involves health, education, police, and voluntary sectors working together to promote child wellbeing and keep children safe
• focus on prevention: shifting resources to invest more heavily in preventative services, with the expectation that this will lead to a reduction in the number of looked-after children over time

To learn more about the Families First Partnership Programme, click on the GOV.UK guidance links below:

• Families First Partnership Programme
• The Guide to the Families First Partnership Programme
• Children's Wellbeing and School's Bill Policy Summary

As we take this journey together, to implement the Families First Partnership Programme reforms, we will keep you updated here with the changes.

Watch this space!