Why is it important?

Central to our Whole Family Approach, we want all our families to flourish and get the right support at the right time to support a children's right to be raised safely in their own families, for as long as they need it.

We are committed to reducing the need for a crisis response to help families, to a much more preventative, early intervention offer.  By working with the whole family to identify needs and solutions we will reduce the likelihood of difficulties occurring in the first place.  Support will be co-ordinated by a range of partners across Education, Health, Social Work and the Third Sector and build on strong relationships with and to meet the needs for the whole family and help to ensure best possible outcomes and reduce the need for future intervention.

Our aim is to invest our time, energy and resources in a preventative way, with early help building on family strengths and available community supports to provide practical solutions and reduce any barriers faced by families.  Our holistic family and trauma informed support will champion a 'no wrong door' principle to ensure joined up support is wrapped around individual families.

Wellbeing is influenced by a number of factors including where we live, the education we have had, our access to greenspace, the support we receive from family and friends and access to health services.  Therefore, it is important for the partnership to look upon children, young people and families using a wider lens that considers these multiple influential factors. 

The past few years have been some of the most challenging for our children, young people and families due to the Covid-19 pandemic.  Whilst services for these groups recover and communities try to return to normal activities, the inequalities that existed between and within communities have been compounded leading to the cost-of-living crisis impacting our children, young people and their families. 

Where are we now?

Over the last three years we have seen increased investment and commitment both nationally and locally around improving preventative services and early support to families. In South Lanarkshire, this includes the implementation of our Parenting Support Pathway, the roll out of the national Universal Health Visiting Pathway, school nursing provision for care experienced young people, additional early learning and childcare provision, the development of early support through Family Support Hubs and an innovative schools-based family initiative called Pathfinders.

In addition, there has been continued support from Midwifery Services for our children and families to thrive and achieve key milestones around child development and services are working with health visiting colleagues and Education to provide a joined up offer of help for families where a need has been identified,

As part of our approach to whole family wellbeing we know that challenges around healthy weight, encouraging breastfeeding, neglect and gender-based violence can impact on families’ outcomes. 

Improving the wellbeing of children and young people affected by disability is a priority for the partnership.  This includes learning, health and social supports and opportunities as well as planning for transitions and supports required beyond childhood.  We will build on consultation with children and their families to better understand their experiences of current services and support.  We will work with children and their families to develop areas for improvement through the life of this plan.

The Scottish Government have committed to early help through the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund, which will support the change and improvement needed to shift investment towards prevention and reduce the need for crisis intervention.  The following areas are part of our integrated approach to supporting families.

We are developing four Family Support Hubs across South Lanarkshire to support easier access to help for families.

We are providing dedicated help to families to help them find their own solutions through a Family Group Decision Making project.

We have recruited peer support workers with lived experience who can help reduce the stigma of needing support.

We have refreshed our Parenting Support Pathway that delivers dedicated programmes to help achieve better outcomes for parents and families.

We have put in place a team of early years workers based in NHS Lanarkshire who will provide support to families with children under five.

We are extending a schools-based family project called Pathfinders that will reduce the need for more complex intervention at a later stage.

We are supporting the extension of attachment informed practice across the Children’s Services partners and we are ensuring we have a trauma informed workforce to help better understand the needs of families.

What will we do next?

We have agreed a number of areas for change which will be a key feature of how we will take a whole family approach, Keep the Promise and tackle child poverty.

These areas of change will be supported by a shared commitment to a clear leadership and workforce strategy, a support system that is accountable to families, improved and increased availability of services and access to support and most importantly, making sure that our families are at the centre of the design of new and changing services.  By the end of this plan we aim to achieve the following outcomes.

Every family that needs support gets the right family support at the right time for as long as it is needed:

• Reduce the number of children and young people living away from their families;
• Reduce the number of families requiring crisis intervention;
• Reduce the inequality gap in child development;
• Reduce the inequality gap in wellbeing outcomes for families’ children and young people; and
• Increase the number of families taking up wider supports.