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

Annex 3: Glossary of terms

Children and Adolescents Mental Health Services ( CAMHS): NHS services that assess and treat young people with emotional, behavioural and mental health difficulties.

Children and Families National Leadership Group (CFNLG): The National Leadership Group (CFNLG)’s purpose is to provide collective leadership and strategic oversight to identify opportunities for greater connectivity across key areas of transformational change to improve outcomes for children, young people and families.

Children’s Services Planning: Scottish legislation requires each local authority and health board, working with other service providers, children, young people and families, and public and third sector stakeholders, to jointly develop and publish a Children’s Services Plan every three years (Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014). Duties include keeping this plan under review and reporting annually on progress being made to safeguard, support and promote wellbeing in line with duties and key tasks in statutory guidance on Children’s Services Planning (Scottish Government, 2020). The last Children’s Services Planning cycle ran from 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2023 and the current cycle runs from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2026.

Children’s Service Plan (CSP): The Children’s Services Plan sets out how partners work collaboratively in the local area to plan and deliver services and support to result in improved outcomes for children, young people and families. This includes provision of children’s, community-based, and adult services, and should consider support for young people as they move between children’s and adult services. The CSP describes the shared local vision and sets out a comprehensive strategy for supporting families, through a broad range of preventative & early intervention approaches (from universal services to targeted intensive support) describing the rationale for service provision.

Children’s Services Planning Partnership (CSPP): CSPPs are the collective of local community members, organisations, services, and stakeholders working together in each area of Scotland (community planning for children and families). Each CSPP has a multi-agency strategic governance group, made up of senior leaders with budgetary and decision-making responsibility, with collective leadership responsibility for local Children’s Services Planning arrangements. The Scottish Government reviews each CSPP’s Children’s Services Plans on behalf of Scottish Ministers and provides individual feedback as well as a national report (Scottish Government, 2022a).

Children’s Services Planning Strategic Leads Network (CSP SLN): This group leads collaboration between and across Children’s Services Planning Partnerships (CSPP’s), Scottish Government policy teams, and key public and third sector stakeholders. Its aim is to strengthen the development, delivery and accountability of Children’s Services Planning (CSP) arrangements at national and local level.

Collective leadership series: This was intended to be a series of sessions aimed at building capacity in leadership practices essential for the delivery of sustainable, transformational change, and supporting leaders in their specific roles and functions throughout change process. The first and only session to date took place in December 2023 with the aim of providing a space for learning around the theories and practices of collective leadership in WFWF work.

Contribution analysis: Involves comparing the logic model with the evidence collected by the evaluation to draw conclusions about whether an intervention has contributed to the outcomes or changes observed. Contribution analysis is a rigorous and robust approach for evaluating complex systems. The goal of contribution analysis to create an evidence-based narrative that a reasonable person would accept as a plausible explanation of the contributing factors that led to the outcomes. Contribution analysis is iterative, in that it involves multiple rounds of evidence collecting, assessment and interpretation, building up and refining the contribution narrative over time.

Coronavirus (COVID-19): The global outbreak of a respiratory illness caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

Convention of Scottish Local Authorities ( COSLA): A councillor-led, cross-party organisation which champions the work of local councils across Scotland.

Crisis intervention: A key aim of the Whole Family Wellbeing Funding is to move from intervening when a crisis happens within families, which could precipitate a referral to or intervention from statutory services, towards prevention, building resilience and providing the right level of support before problems materialise.

Early intervention and prevention: this is support that addresses the needs of children and adults in a family both before they need it (so to prevent any issues from developing) and at the time of need rather than at crisis point (this is known as early intervention) in line with ‘Getting it right for every child’ principles and values. Early intervention focusses on providing support to families soon after identifying issues, beyond they escalate. Prevention focusses on activities to mitigate against issues and problems from occurring in the first place.

Element 1: The first element of the Scottish Government’s Whole Family Wellbeing Funding provides direct support to all Children’s Service Planning Partnerships (CSPPs) to support the scale up and delivery of holistic whole family support in local areas. This funding can also be used to build local capacity for achieving transformational change needed in how families are supported, for example, by recruiting a small team to support the CSPP plan for this funding or buying in additional transformational expertise to support leadership discussions.

Element 2: The second element of the Scottish Government’s Whole Family Wellbeing Funding is focussed on a package of national support. This includes collaborative partnerships between a Scottish Government and Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection (CELCIS) joint change team and a small number of CSPPs (East Ayrshire, Glasgow City and East Lothian) to apply a systematic approach to improvement (the QI Journey), build local transformation capability and capacity and drive a whole systems approach in family support at the local and national level. Element 2 was research separately by Rocket Science and Blake Stevenson. This IFF evaluation covers Element 2 to the extent that it relates to Element 1.

Element 3: The third element of the Scottish Government’s Whole Family Wellbeing Funding aims to enable a cross-portfolio approach to system change, supporting national level policy delivery. It drives and supports the outcomes sought from the WFWF.

Family Support Advisory Group (FSAG): The Family Support Advisory Group (FSAG), formerly the Family Support Delivery Group (FSDG), is made up of a range of partners from national and local government, the third sector and statutory services. The FSDG was established as a sub-group of the Coronavirus (COVID-19): Children and Families Collective Leadership Group to deliver the Holistic Family Support Vision and Blueprint for Change. The Scottish Government developed outcomes and the approach of the Whole Family Wellbeing Funding in collaboration with stakeholders including the FSAG.

Genogram: A genogram is a visual tool that shows a family tree and is used to give a pictorial representation of a family system.

Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC): Scotland’s national framework designed to improve outcomes for children and young people by providing a consistent and collaborative approach to child wellbeing (Scottish Government, 2022d).

Holistic family support: In Scotland, holistic family support is broadly understood to be a range of services to help families meet their individual needs. The aim is to improve families' wellbeing by providing advice and support to enable them to avoid crisis. The support is provided by a range of organisations (agencies, professionals, the third sector, trusted partners).

Initial plans: Initial plans were the first documentation CSPPs provided setting out how they intended to spend their WFWF allocation for 2022-23. The initial plan template created by the Scottish Government asked for information on CSPPs’ existing approach to holistic whole family support, planned activity for WFWF, anticipated outcomes for the first year, and intended monitoring activities. The initial plan template also contained detail on the allocation methodology for the WFWF, the aims of the funding (see policy background section in the main report), and the criteria for spending the funding.

Impact evaluation: an impact evaluation aims to measure the difference (if any) that an intervention has made. It typically explores questions such as: to what extent has the intervention produced the intended results expected at this stage of delivery, for whom and in what circumstances were these results seen, what unintended results (positive or negative) were seen, and what could be improved to strengthen the difference the intervention can make in the future.

Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA): Joint Strategic Needs Assessment is a process within the 3-year Children’s Services Planning cycle which draws on the local multi-agency evidence-base to identify current and future wellbeing needs of the local population of children, young people and families. This is used as a basis for development of the local Children’s Services Plan, including agreement of strategic priorities, decision-making on commissioning and provision of services, and identification of improvement activity.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI): A key performance indicator (KPI) is a measurable value that indicates whether and to what extent a CSPP is achieving the objectives set out in the Children’s Services Plan. KPIs are used to evaluate and monitor the performance of a CSPP against specific goals and targets.

Learning into Action network (LiA Network): The WFWF Learning into Action network is co-designed and co-delivered with stakeholders to enable collaboration, facilitate peer support, share learning and approaches from across the country, and support solution-focused discussions around the barriers to a whole systems approach. CSPPs have utilised this network to develop their initial plans and delivery of WFWF activities.

Maturity model: An illustrative model that was developed by IFF Research early in the WFWF Year 1 process evaluation to help illustrate findings from the analysis of the initial plans. This model was designed to illustrate broadly how far into their journey CSPPs were (categorised by ‘early’, ‘moderate’ and ‘advanced’) and what sorts of activities they planned to use WFWF for.

Process evaluation: An evaluation that explores how an initiative (in this case the WFWF) was designed and delivered. It typically explores questions such as: was the initiative delivered as intended; what worked well/less well, for whom and why; what could be improved; what we can learn for future initiatives.

Scottish Government Whole Family Wellbeing Funding (WFWF) leads: The Scottish Government put in place WFWF leads to provide CSPPs with a connection into the programme throughout the funding period. Each CSPP is allocated a lead who is their direct point of contact for queries and key information about the programme.

Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD): SIMD measures current income, employment, health, education, skills and training, housing, geographic access and crime. This is a statistical tool used by local authorities, the Scottish Government, the NHS and other government bodies to support policy and decision making particularly by targeting government action in the measures and areas that are in need.

SHANARRI indicators: a set of eight wellbeing outcomes used in Scotland's Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC) framework. These indicators are designed to help assess and ensure the overall wellbeing of children and young people. The term SHANARRI stands for Safe, Healthy, Achieving, Nurtured, Active, Respected, Responsible, Included.

Supporting Families: A National Self-Assessment Toolkit for Change: a quality improvement framework designed to help organisations and agencies that provide family support services evaluate and improve the quality of the support they offer.

Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan: This plan sets out policies and proposals to progress towards targets related to the reduction of child poverty in the longer term. It outlines the six priority groups that the Whole Family Wellbeing Funding intends to support which are judged by the CSPP to be most in need. These are: lone-parent families, housing where someone is disabled, families with three or more children, minority ethnic families, families with a child under one year old, families where the mother is under 25 years old.

The Promise: The Promise outlines key outcomes that aim to ensure that Scotland’s children and young people grow up loved, safe and respected so that they can realise their full potential. This was developed following the Independent Care Review where, over three years, the Care Review listened to care experienced children, young people, and families to put together evidence around how Scotland could improve.

Third Sector Interface: The Third Sector Interface (TSI) Scotland Network is a body of charities that support the third sector across Scotland. There are 32 TSIs in Scotland, one for each local authority area. The TSI Scotland Network works collectively to share best practice, gather information on the third sector and shape collective responses on key issues.

Whole Family Wellbeing Funding (WFWF): The Scottish Government’s Programme for Government 2021-22 committed to investing £500 million in Whole Family Wellbeing Funding (WFWF). The aim is to transform the way family support is delivered so families, can get access to the help they need, where and when they need it. The Investment Approach sets out the decision to elongate the timeframe of the Whole Family Wellbeing programme beyond 2025-26, including the commitment to extend the funding for Children Services Planning Partnerships into 2026-27, taking an evidence-based approach to spending decisions (Scottish Government, 2024a).