Whole Family Wellbeing Funding (WFWF) Programme - year 2: process and impact evaluation - full report

Annex 2: Element 3 projects

Aberlour Mother and Child Units: This relates to two new Mother and Child units being run by Aberlour Children’s Charity. These are transformational new residential recovery services designed specifically to support women and their children through treatment from substance misuse before they reach a point of crisis in having their children removed from their care. The houses are based in Dundee and Falkirk accepting referrals from across the country and providing 24/7 relationship-based, strengths-focused therapeutic and emotional support for women, their children and, where appropriate, their partners. The houses offer wraparound support to women pre-residential (including women in the ante-natal period), person-centred residential recovery provision (when women decide that is what they need) and intensive community-based aftercare support. Aberlour’s relationship-based programme of support (using a ‘Social Model’ approach) lasts on average 6 months, with typically 16 women and their children being supported per annum across the two houses.

Creating equitable outcomes and accessible pathways of support for young children in the earliest years of life: The aim of this work is to increase knowledge, skills and understanding of the early years workforce, including ELC and Health Visiting on how they can support early language development, and begin to reduce unnecessary or inappropriate referrals to specialist services such as Speech and Language Therapy. It is designed to work directly with parents and carers, along a continuum of support to enable a broader understanding of what aids or hinders child development, particularly around speech and language.

Dundee Pathfinder- Organisational change to deliver: The Dundee Pathfinder brings together the Scottish Government, Department for Work and Pensions-UK Government and Dundee City Council with their local partners, to work collaboratively to tackle child poverty, with a particular focus on supporting families out of poverty though person-centred and holistic support into employment. WFWF is being used to provide partners in Dundee, including Dundee City Council, DWP and others, external consultancy support to help drive, manage and evaluate transformational change at the pace required.

Families Learning Together: Involves working with Peeple to extend the impact of the Family Learning Scotland Programme through a new test of change to integrate a family-based family learning approach across all services that work with children and families in a local area and support the development of a parent peer network to support parents and ensure they contribute to service design.

Family Childminding Partnership: Scottish Childminding Association (SCMA), in partnership with Scottish Government (SG), are delivering holistic family support which aims to inform transformational change within national policy delivery. They are seeking to test the impact and outcomes of a model which supports whole family wellbeing, is targeted at families in need and supports the key commitments of The Promise, through the provision of preventative family support within enhanced, nurturing childminding placements.

Family support Community Custodial Units: Funding is being used to primarily to develop a comprehensive understanding of the needs that the families of women in the CCUs have. This is likely to include support around things such as parenting, budgeting, meal provision and after school study. A specific aspect is likely to include assisting women to consider how they spend their time as the access the community and spend time with their family and look at how they can maximise access to facilities and community resources.

Foundations for families: Building on Adoption UK Scotland’s (AUKS) successful therapeutic and education support services model, currently known as TESSA, through Foundations for Families AUKS is developing and piloting a new pathway approach which improves and enables the identification and referral of families at the earliest point to holistic and therapeutic support. Collaborating with Local Authority partners AUKS will deliver specialist training so agencies can work with Kinship Care families to identify and access a broad range of community and specialist support and more targeted support for those at risk of crisis.

Whole Family Support through General Practice [Previously known as Getting it Right for Families in the Deep End]: This funding aims to create the conditions for Deep End practices to take a two-pronged approach to maximise the role of general practice in supporting families who are in/at risk of poverty and poor health outcomes. One is through making every contact count, so that consultations with families do not just address the clinical issues presented, but are the starting point for social, psychological and economic support.

Grow Your Own Routes: Scaling up a national demonstration project supporting young people harmed by family alcohol and drug use. In April 2019, Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol and Drugs (Scottish Families) launched a three-year Young Persons’ National Demonstration Project, subsequently named ‘Routes’. responding to a significant gap in support for young people affected by someone else’s substance use. Routes is a co-produced youthwork, solutions-focused and asset-based model which engages young people to effect change in their lives. Living for years with unpredictability, chaos and trauma does not need to lead to poor outcomes. With the right support, the courageous and resilient young people can take a very different path, breaking cycles of intergenerational substance use and harm. WFWF is being used for a national ‘Grow Your Own Routes’ learning set on the Routes practice model, alongside a supported scale-up to five ‘early adopter’ localities in partnership with local third sector organisations.

Includem ADAPT: ADAPT aims to deliver a support service to 10–26-year-olds and their families. Through collaborative working with partners across Justice, health and local authorities, bespoke referral routes would be developed to ensure support is offered at the right time. This is a flexible, 8am-10pm, 7 days a week service with 24 hr phone support.

Inverclyde Transformation Initiative (Serious Organised Crime Early Intervention and Prevention for Families): The service will build on an existing model developed and delivered in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee, but adapted to the unique circumstances within Inverclyde. The funding will support approximately 100 young people, providing targeted intensive one to one provision, focusing on risk reduction, group work, peer mentoring and diversionary activities. The partner (Action for Children) will build on its expertise in supporting families where Young People (YP) are at risk of criminal exploitation linked to Serious Organised Crime (SOC) through a new transformational initiative.

Open Kindergarten feasibility study and evaluation: WFWF is being used to upscale the Open Kindergarten approach in two local authorities (Midlothian and East Lothian), through one third sector organisation. This upscaling could then support the wider rollout of this approach across other local authorities in phase 4.