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

5 Outcomes and contributing factors: leadership, workforce and culture

This section explores the extent of achievement of the outcomes intended by the leadership, workforce and culture component of WFWF. This component emphasises the importance of effective leadership; working collaboratively among staff and other partners, including third sector, adult services and the Scottish Government; increased holistic family support service capacity and staff wellbeing within CSPPs; and clear and shared understanding of families’ needs across the system.

Key findings

• Visible and embedded strategic leadership was a key enabling factor for workforce and culture outcomes captured by this WFWF core component. It helped promote multi-agency collaboration and innovation.
• All CSPPs showed evidence of working collaboratively together in planning and delivery, including third sector partners. Key drivers included design and implementation of new strategic initiatives; multi-agency operational meetings; and active and regular involvement of third sector partners.
• New and improved ways of working in CSPPs encouraged more transparency and information sharing between partners. In some CSPPs this contributed to improved understanding of families’ needs and how services were experienced across the whole system.
• There was some evidence of improved family support capacity, particularly by using WFWF to recruit new or specialist roles and less duplication of work due to greater partner collaboration. However, CSPPs continued to experience recruitment and retention challenges, related to the need to rely on short-term staff contracts (due to the time-limited nature of WFWF) and limited numbers of qualified candidates for roles.
• In Year 2, most CSPPs did not provide evidence of having undertaken WFWF activities related to the outcomes in the logic model around improving workforce wellbeing or implementing innovative family services solutions; instead focussing on other WFWF outcomes (which they saw as a priority to address first). Evidence was limited of the impact of wellbeing and innovation initiatives in the few CSPPs that had implemented them.

Outcome: Strategic leads, family services managers and frontline practitioners (including third sector partners) are working more collaboratively and with adult services

This outcome was assessed as being partly achieved, based on strong and consistent evidence from strategic leads, family services managers and frontline practitioners, and WFWF annual reports.

All CSPPs showed evidence of working collaboratively in planning and delivery, including with third sector partners and adult services. This was primarily through the establishment of new strategic groups to enhance collaboration and communication across CSPP leaders. Strategic leads and service managers cited seeing the benefits of this, including reduced duplication of work (as CSPP partners were aware of the activity of others) and closer working relationships (for example, to share learning and knowledge).

"It feels really different... there's much more of a 'we can do things better together', and I think there's much more recognition of 'we're much richer doing things in partnership with other services’ and that there's different places and different organisations or projects that are experts kind of in their field, and how can we maximise working together, rather than that we can do it all."

Service Manager

The level of collaboration varied within CSPPs, with organisations that have a less flexible or agile approach to working (for example, due to legislation or regulatory requirements such as social work or health services) encountering greater challenges to collaboration.

Factors enabling the outcome

There were three key enabling factors. The first was the design and implementation of new strategic initiatives to enable more collaborative working within CSPPs. For example, in Fife, the implementation of CSPP-wide practice development sessions created a designated forum for collaboration and innovation amongst staff who would not otherwise meet. The sessions involved staff from across the CSPP sharing learning, good practice, and mitigations for ongoing challenges.

“We have new initiatives to collaborate...it brings people together that wouldn’t normally sit down together to share how we can work together better, what we are doing and where to go next with our planning.”

Strategic Lead

The second key enabler was the active involvement of third sector partners, who were felt to bring new ideas and solutions to challenges that could enhance service delivery. All case study CSPPs reported collaborating with the third sector to some extent, including those supporting adults, in the planning and delivery of WFWF activity. CSPPs engaged third sector partners through steering groups, multi-partner workshops and panel consultations. Strategic leads and managers across most case study CSPPs felt Year 2 of WFWF had seen significant progress in their relationships with the third sector, compared with Year 1.

“[When WFWF started], we had very limited engagement with our third sector partners. Our most recent [third sector] forum had over 30 providers there. So that time we’ve been able to afford to develop those relationships has really increased the buy-in from the third sector.”

Strategic Lead

Third sector staff who took part in the evaluation also cited closer working and collaboration in Year 2 of the evaluation; with fewer reports of third sector engagement being ‘selective’ or ‘superficial’, than were reported in Year 1.

“I would say we feel part of it [WFWF activity] now...we’re integrated and feel valued at the table.”

Strategic Lead (third sector)

The third enabler was reported by case study CSPP strategic leads and service managers who highlighted that having multi-agency meetings to discuss individual families’ needs enabled more effective information sharing across the CSPP and the identification of service gaps, as well as avoiding duplication of work. In Aberdeen City, frontline staff held multi-agency meetings with all professionals involved in a family’s case, to work collaboratively together in planning and delivering to ensure families receive coordinated and joined up support.

Factors limiting the outcome

Five factors limited further collaboration.

Firstly, while collaboration with the third sector had improved since Year 1, challenges remained, leading to ongoing siloed working. Some strategic leads and managers reported ongoing siloed working within CSPPs, partly due to bureaucracy aligning hiring practices and IT systems across partners, including third sector organisations, which limited collaboration. Despite staffing improvements, CSPPs still faced recruitment and retention challenges, leading to high staff turnover and hindering the development of close working relationships. Recruitment and retention are discussed further under the outcome ‘increased holistic whole family support service capacity among CSPP partners – plans available for integrating scaled and new services’.

Secondly, strategic leads and managers highlighted that third sector organisations often provided fixed support packages, which could be difficult to adapt to families' changing needs.

A third barrier was that smaller third sector organisations also had limited knowledge of the other family support available making it harder for them to integrate with other services. Case study strategic leads and managers suggested that CSPPs needed to help these organisations better understand the system to enhance collaboration.

“There are lots of small organisations...we want to work in partnership with them and that is our mantra...but they can be suspicious of our plans...we just want smart thinking like how we bring it together, how we utilise all the resources we have to benefit each other.”

Strategic Lead

A fourth barrier involved the need for better communication of WFWF aims and decision-making processes to frontline staff in some CSPPs. Strategic leads and managers emphasised that some work was underway to improve transparency and feedback mechanisms, though this had only recently begun and frontline practitioners reported little knowledge of this. Strategic leads and managers provided examples of using surveys and open forums to ensure staff feel heard and valued, and to foster collaboration.

"If something's not working or we could do it better then let's have a discussion. We've got steering groups that they [frontline practitioners] have a voice there at that group and we've got a couple of staff also within an additional support needs school who have been encouraged to be vocal about what's working well and what could we do better."

Manager

Finally, in one case study CSPP, cultural resistance hindered collaboration. Strategic leads noted that their ambitious systems change programme overwhelmed some staff, leading to turnover. To address this, the CSPP focused on hiring staff aligned with its values and held regular meetings to reinforce messages and reassure staff. An anonymous honesty box was also introduced for open feedback. The impact of these initiatives was yet to be seen.

Outcome: Increased holistic whole family support service capacity among CSPP partners – plans available for integrating scaled and new services

This outcome was assessed as being partly achieved, based on strong and consistent evidence from strategic leads, family services managers, frontline practitioners and WFWF annual reports.

Although there was some evidence of improved family support capacity, particularly around the recruitment of new or specialist roles and less duplication of work due to greater partner collaboration, CSPPs continue to experience recruitment and retention challenges.

Factors enabling the outcome

Three main factors enabled this outcome, which were recruiting new or specialist roles, streamlining processes and working more closely with the third sector.

A first enabling factor – recruiting new or specialist roles – was reported in Fife, where a new Homemaker role was introduced as a pilot to test the provision of practical in-home support, helping families identify their needs, improve wellbeing, and develop everyday skills like setting routines and boundaries for children. Frontline practitioners described the role as providing "invaluable additional capacity." The learning from the project has been considered in terms of future service design in the Children & Families Social Work Service focusing on early support and help.

“Without [the Homemaker], I [as a social worker] would have gone in and done what I could with the family, but wouldn’t have resolved those issues like morning routines or getting the cupboards organised so it is easy to get the kids ready for school... I wouldn’t have had time, so this really helped give all round support that this family needed.”

Frontline practitioner

Another example from East Renfrewshire is provided in the Spotlight box below.

Figure 8 CSPP Spotlight: East Renfrewshire

Improving capacity to better meet family needs, based on evidence-based decision making.

East Renfrewshire reviewed their parenting programmes, incorporating evidence and feedback to address the needs of families with children with additional support needs (e.g. disabilities and/or neurodiversity) to support families and carers to give their children the best start in life in a nurturing, safe and stable environment. As a result of this review, the CSPP invested in the Family First Service, creating an additional specialist post specifically to support families caring for children with additional support needs. This role focuses on areas such as mental wellbeing, sleep, family functioning, parenting and money advice.

Although the evidence of impact of the post for this service was still limited, since the start of the role in September 2023, the specialist practitioner had supported more than 60 families.

A second enabling factor was reported in East Lothian, where strategic leads and managers mentioned a different approach to using WFWF to enhance capacity by introducing a pre-triage system to streamline their processes. This system returned incomplete referrals to the person making the referral asking for additional information. Although this was still in early days of implementation, it was reported to have already improved the efficiency of triage and reduced staff time chasing missing information.

Fife also reported streamlining their services to reduce duplication of work by holding weekly team meetings to share information, identify gaps in support and provide joined up support.

Finally, some CSPPs had commissioned the third sector to undertake more service delivery, in order to expand capacity. For example, Clackmannanshire commissioned Aberlour Children’s Charity and Barnardo’s to increase capacity to support children, young people and families with care experience or on the edges of care. This work was still in the early stages, and there were limited results regarding the impact of this increased staffing capacity so far.

Factors limiting the outcome

While most CSPPs reported pockets of improved service capacity, the pace of progress envisioned by the Scottish Government was limited by challenges in recruiting and retaining staff with specific capabilities to deliver WFWF activity. Key barriers included retention issues due to short term contracts and funding uncertainty and recruiting from ‘a small pool’ of qualified candidates.

Firstly, as in Year 1, some strategic leads and managers reported that uncertainty around the duration of WFWF remained a barrier to recruitment and retention. Staff were reluctant to accept positions on short-term contracts or moved on quickly for more permanent opportunities. For some CSPPs, this meant new posts remained unfilled, whilst others experienced disruptions to service delivery due to high staff turnover.

"Just because we were given extra money, you know, and think of the old days, you could just throw money at things you just employ more people...And you just work your way through it. But it's been really difficult to recruit [due to] the nature of the short-term funding."

Strategic Lead

Secondly, CSPPs also encountered challenges recruiting from ‘a small pool’ of qualified candidates. Strategic leads and managers linked this to an ageing workforce, the post-pandemic impact on workers’ physical and mental health, and a national shortage of qualified staff (including social workers and family support workers).

Outcome: CSPPs have clear and shared understanding of families' needs and how services are experienced across the whole system

There was insufficient evidence to draw a confident conclusion about the achievement of this outcome, based on interviews with strategic leads, service managers and frontline practitioners, and WFWF annual reports.

Some CSPPs had implemented new ways of working, including setting up new governance groups to encourage joined up ways of working and information sharing. For example, one CSPP established a ‘Family Support Collaborative’, which involved representatives of the local council, third sector, and people with lived experience meeting to share feedback on how services are experienced across the system. This feedback was then shared with all CSPP strategic leads and managers.

“Because whole family wellbeing fund[ing] is across health and education, it's about making sure that all of our partners have an opportunity to express their own opinion.”

Service Manager

Factors enabling the outcome

Some CSPPs had commissioned scoping activities to map the local support landscape, against the needs of families in their area. This included using WFWF funds to commission their local Third Sector Interface (TSI), a body of charities that support third sector organisations across Scotland, to undertake this mapping activity (see Glossary in Annex 3). These activities were in the early stages (in some cases the TSI was yet to be commissioned), though the aim was that the TSI would identify available local services and make recommendations for which new services (if any) should be delivered to meet the needs of children, young people and families in their area. This would take into consideration wider contextual challenges, for example, the needs of and services for rural communities.

Factors limiting the outcome

There were three key factors limiting this outcome.

Firstly, membership of new governance groups primarily included strategic leads and service managers. This meant that often frontline practitioners were not part of discussions about how services were experienced across the system and only had information relating to services they delivered.

“I'm not sure what is happening across the system...I know what is happening in my area but [I’m] not clear beyond that.”

Frontline Practitioner

Secondly, strategic leads and managers also felt that the lack of coordination between governance groups and other work related to family support limited progress towards a clear and shared understanding of families’ needs and their experiences with services across the whole system. To overcome this, governance groups would need to better integrate with related initiatives, to ensure WFWF activity does not operate in a silo and to promote the sharing of developments across the system. An example of this was reported in South Lanarkshire, where they streamlined governance structures to be more effective. For this, they reduced the number of governance groups from 12 to three cross-cutting groups and aligned them to the CSPP’s priorities (including WFWF).

A third limiting factor was the use of different case recording systems across CSPPs which did not always align and were not accessible to all partners. This meant data was not easily available about family experiences across the system. In some cases, the use of new case referral mechanisms, such as the Fast Online Referral Tracking (FORT) system, helped CSPPs to overcome this challenge (see Figure 9 below).

“But still that connectedness is really not there. People, organisations, sectors are still setting things up unbeknown to other sectors. When it comes to recording mechanisms, …everybody's recording families and the work that they're doing using different systems and there's not one way everyone can have access to [the data]. So, we're just still not as connected. We [are] on a journey with it.”

Strategic Lead

Figure 9 CSPP Spotlight: Renfrewshire

Using new case referral mechanisms to improve data information sharing and access across the partnership.

Renfrewshire have established the ‘Request for Assistance’ (RfA), a single point of access for children, young people and families to self-refer to support online. Once the RfA was received, a member of the WFWF service followed up with the referrer to discuss their support needs and identify the most appropriate organisation to deliver that support, whether that be the local third sector or WFWF partners.

To support this process, the CSPP has connected the RfA with the Fast Online Referral Tracking (FORT) system. This allowed WFWF frontline practitioners and other agencies to refer children, young people and families to each other through a cloud-based portal, to improve data information sharing and access to information when it was needed. It was hoped that this contributes to a shared and clear understanding of families’ needs and how services are experienced across the whole system, helping frontline practitioners make the best decisions about the support for children, young people and families.

Outcome: Strategic leads, family services managers and practitioners’ wellbeing is improved and integral to delivery of family services

There was insufficient evidence to draw a confident conclusion about the achievement of this outcome, based on interviews with strategic leads, family services managers and frontline practitioners, and WFWF annual reports.

Most CSPPs did not prioritise activities related to workforce wellbeing using WFWF in Year 2 and focussed first on other WFWF outcomes. Evidence of the impact of wellbeing initiatives in the few CSPPs that implemented these types of initiatives for their workforce also was limited.

An example of an initiative designed to improve wellbeing was in East Ayrshire, where they introduced a compassionate, relationship-based leadership model, prioritised building trust, open communication and strong connections between leaders and staff, as well as encouraging collaboration. As a result, managers encouraged staff to be more open and honest about their wellbeing. This shift in leadership approach celebrated new perspectives, while setting higher standards on professional behaviour such as clear communication, adherence to best practices and positive interactions.

Factors enabling the outcome

Data on factors enabling this outcome was minimal, mainly because CSPPs did not prioritise this outcome. Strategic leads and managers emphasised that having visible and supportive leadership committed to advancing wellbeing initiatives was crucial, but no further details were provided.

Factors limiting the outcome

Data on factors limiting this outcome was also minimal; case study participants primarily mentioned general issues affecting workforce morale and motivation:

• High workloads and the strain this can place on staff mental capacity;
• Limited capacity for staff to engage with learning and development opportunities; and
• The risk of increased stress and burnout associated with culture change.

Outcome: Strategic leads, family services managers and frontline practitioners implement initiatives to develop a culture in CSPPs that encourages and empowers them to develop innovative family services solutions

There was insufficient evidence to draw a confident conclusion about the achievement of this outcome, based on interviews with strategic leads, family services managers and frontline practitioners, and WFWF annual reports.

Some case study CSPPs were able to provide examples of innovative approaches they had introduced to achieve this outcome, though many had yet to see the results of these. It is worth noting that while these indicate innovative approaches are being implemented, they do not, on their own, provide clear evidence of the presence of the cultural change described in the outcome.

The Spotlight below discusses how East Ayrshire used mobile, dedicated support to connect rural families to support.

Figure 10 CSPP Spotlight: East Ayrshire

Early intervention through a mobile barber service who works in rural communities, providing a hairdressing service while providing counselling and advice for children, young people and families. The rural nature of East Ayrshire means that some families are unable to access family support when and where they need it. East Ayrshire used WFWF allocation to take services to families; a counsellor joins a mobile barber and a teen’s coffee van, to provide support to communities around mental health, substance use and financial wellbeing. “We've got a mobile barber that goes to our most rural communities, but there's also a counsellor as part of that and there is the teen coffee van. People are coming out to have their free haircuts, but then having a chance to speak to somebody around the mental health, addictions or financial inclusion. So, we absolutely must be innovative about how we deliver services because you know, if we don't bring them to people, people will not come to us because they don't have the resource to maybe do that.” Manager

Another example was reported in South Lanarkshire; where additional support (e.g. programmes where groups engaged in gardening activities) was offered to those who no longer required statutory support but who benefitted from longer-term, lighter-touch support. This ongoing connection enabled participants to continue their development without needing statutory support, fostering a more tailored approach from the CSPP to meet their needs.

Factors enabling the outcome

There was limited evidence about the factors enabling this outcome, largely because initiatives were in the early stages of development. Having visible and supportive strategic leadership committed to innovation and which listened to staff ideas were important factors in fostering positive cultures that encourage continuous improvement and innovative family services solutions. No further detail was provided on these enablers.

Factors limiting the outcome

The main factor limiting greater innovation was staff capacity and high workloads, reducing the time and mental capacity to engage in innovative approaches. Additionally, practitioners felt unsure how it was intended that they would innovate and feel empowered to make changes.

6 Outcomes and contributing factors: children, young people and families at the centre of service design

This section explores the extent of achievement of the outcomes intended by the WFWF component involving children, young people and families at the centre of service design. This component emphasises the importance of family services that are designed based on the needs and rights of local families, are co-designed with families, and that involve integrated support pathways that are easy for families to navigate.

Key findings

• Family services managers and practitioners developed skills in family engagement and co-design for individual services. Enabling factors included staff training, dedicated roles for family engagement feedback collection, and integrating family consultation into service frameworks.
• CSPPs demonstrated ongoing family engagement, using feedback to improve individual family support and services. Enabling factors included multiple feedback channels, lived experience representation on advisory groups, practitioners embedding feedback conversations into daily practice and leveraging families’ relationships for collecting feedback.
• There was limited evidence of family engagement and co-design being used to inform broader service design (beyond individual services). Families also felt their feedback directly influenced their own support but were less aware of its impact on broader family support service design in their area. More work was needed to ‘close the feedback loop’ ensuring families see how their input shapes available support.
• Children, young people, and families who were interviewed through the evaluation and had accessed WFWF support, appreciated the non-judgmental, stigma-free support they received. However, there was a lack of secondary data to corroborate their views and show that CSPPs were also actively monitoring services being stigma-free. CSPPs may need help with monitoring perceptions of stigma. Enabling factors included third sector delivery of support, rebranding service names and descriptions, and practitioners’ empathy and adaptability.

Outcomes: Family services managers and frontline practitioners develop engagement, feedback collection and co-design skills, and collate and analyse service design feedback

There was insufficient evidence to draw a confident conclusion about the achievement of this outcome, based on interviews with family services managers and frontline practitioners, and WFWF annual reports.

Family services managers and frontline practitioners shared lots of evidence of developing engagement and collection systems to gather feedback from families on individual services they used. Information collected was typically about what was working well and less well, and suggestions for improvement. CSPPs provided limited evidence of analysing and using feedback on system-wide family support (beyond individual services) to inform service design. This was partly due to challenges with CSPP analytical capacity and capability, as discussed in Section 8. However, many CSPPs were developing initiatives aimed at improving the collection, analysis, and use of feedback across family support.

Most CSPPs used questionnaires, feedback forms, focus groups and one-to-one discussions, and drop-in feedback sessions with frontline practitioners, to engage families in the design of individual services. Depending on the nature of the support or the families being consulted, this was undertaken by local authority or third sector practitioners already known to the families, or by practitioners involved in delivering the support. Examples included:

• East Lothian’s library support staff used drop-in participation sessions to gather young people’s feedback on their use of the library, and how they want to use it.
• East Ayrshire’s The Promise Team facilitated a ‘Hackathon’ as a means to engage young people with involvement in the justice system and provide the opportunity for practitioners to ask about young people’s experiences with being in mainstream education, having secure housing and being connected with their community.
• South Lanarkshire staff used mind mapping in its teen group to capture feedback from young people on what activities and support they would value most.

Strategic leads and managers often described efforts to train staff in co-design with families, recognising the importance of giving children, young people, and families a voice. For instance, a third sector partner in Fife was developing an accessible co-design process, which was being evaluated by an independent reviewer. This process was being used to address issues with disconnected services and families' difficulty in accessing them.

"We're quite hopeful that this will lead to a different relationship between service users and service provider, you know, and people will feel as if they have a role in the service that they then ultimately end up consuming and not just that things are done to them... we're hopeful that the independent evaluation will give us really powerful learning that we will be able to roll out across services."

Strategic Lead

Factors enabling the outcome

Three factors enabled this outcome: staff training, hiring staff dedicated to family feedback collection, and including family consultation in quality assurance or service operating frameworks.

The first factor enabling this was that some CSPPs used their WFWF allocation to deliver training on family engagement, consultation and co-design to frontline practitioners. This was commonly delivered by third sector partners.

The second factor related to recruitment was that CSPPs created posts or hired more staff into posts dedicated to engaging families in providing feedback and to use that feedback to improve the support relevance. East Lothian created the Community Officer role, with the responsibility to review services, including capturing feedback from families throughout their support journey. Their role led to changes in service design, including an increased number of families attending drop-in support at a local library, and revising the service ethos to be less judgemental. Fife created the Homemaker role, discussed in the Spotlight below.

Figure 11 CSPP Spotlight: Fife

Fife’s Homemaker role empowers families to feedback, then coordinates adaptations to their support.

The Homemaker role within Fife’s Family Support Service was a small pilot of a practical, hands-on position that focuses on providing direct assistance to families who are facing challenges in maintaining a stable and supportive home environment. The responsibilities include practical home, life skills, parenting support, emotional support and crisis prevention. A key responsibility was collaboration with other services, through weekly multi-agency meetings, to ensure the changing needs of families are understood and quickly responded to by the most appropriate service. It was this feature of the role that supports family support staff to engage with families and to use that to inform relevant support. Key skills for staff included active listening and emotional validation, confidence with flexibly adapting support to the changing needs of families, and multi-agency communication:

“Homemakers can be put in difficult positions when families are discontent with the care provision being provided. They need to be seen to be listening and acknowledging the frustrations as well as feeding that information up.”

Frontline practitioner

Practitioners discussed the role of the Homemaker to enable families to feedback.

“This family in particular said [that they] never really had a voice. They were scared of professionals but the Homemaker coming on board started that train whereby they felt respected and listened to and became very open in their communications...She absolutely is supported to feedback and as the weeks went on they were able to do that more and more, which was nice to see.”

Frontline practitioner

The learning from this pilot will support service redesign, with a view that family support workers continue to provide this type of support for families.

The third enabling factor was that CSPPs were looking to embed family consultation and co-design into their quality assurance and service operational frameworks. For example, including family consultation as criteria in a framework, and detailing the standards and procedures for family consultation. Strategic leads interviewed expected this to contribute to more consistent family engagement across services, that informed service design.

“We're building that into our core quality assurance stuff that we’re doing as a partnership…it is very much about interviewing staff, about understanding that data and what that’s telling us, but it’s also very much that tripartite approach in terms of what are we hearing from the people we are delivering services to.”

Strategic Lead

Factors limiting the outcome

Limited evidence was available for factors limiting this outcome. A factor cited by managers and practitioners was staff capacity to engage in training and guidance, and to put it into practice.

Outcome: Children, young people and families are actively, regularly and meaningfully engaged in service design

This outcome was assessed as being partly achieved, based on strong and consistent evidence from interviews with frontline practitioners, and children, young people and families, and WFWF annual reports.

While CSPPs evidenced ongoing family engagement and using this to inform both individual families’ support and individual service improvement, limited evidence was available of CSPPs using this feedback to inform system-level service design (beyond individual services).

Across all CSPPs, children, young people and families were supported to feedback on their experiences of individual support they were involved in. This was primarily through informal conversations with practitioners that supported them, and they often preferred this over other formal feedback methods like filling in a form or survey.

"She [practitioner] tries new things and then you kind of chat about how that's working and if it doesn't work then you try something else, and if it is working then great."

Child

Factors enabling the outcome

Four factors enabled families to engage in service design: multiple feedback channels and being asked at multiple time points in a family’s support journey; including lived experience representation on advisory and leadership groups; encouraging practitioners to embed conversations with families about their support experience into day-to-day practice; and leveraging existing relationships with families to collect feedback.

The first factor related to how CSPPs support diverse families, with different communication styles. CSPPs that used multiple communication channels across multiple time points in families’ support journeys captured better quality information more regularly.

"They've got opportunities to feedback, whether it's at the start and it's around design and the support that they receive or it's throughout with their worker or it's at the end with a kind of participation officer and recognise the available support."

Strategic Lead

The second factor was lived experience representation on advisory and leadership groups also supported regular family engagement, especially where those people had responsibilities for peer consultation. This was described as the ‘See One, Do One, Teach One’^[14] approach, which helped to expand the capacity of the CSPP to regularly engage families in feedback.

“They’re lived experience [members] going to be going out and doing area mapping and consultation with their peers as part of that."

Manager

The third factor that enabled this outcome was that practitioners regularly captured family feedback by embedding conversations with families about their experience of support into their day-to-day practice.

"He [family practitioner] does sometimes evaluate things with me. He'll say was that helpful, do you think we could do something differently next time."

Child

"It wasn't only about the [feedback] forms - they [practitioners] were asking even when we had the cycling; we had like half an hour going outside on the cycling and they were like, how do you feel, are you OK, do you need anything? They were really supportive."

Parent

The fourth factor related to how CSPPs were better able to regularly engage families in feedback by leveraging families’ existing relationships in the community. For example, practitioners known to families sent requests for feedback, through surveys or forms, which improved response rates.

“What we learned is that you have to use your local networks that you have so linking in with the family outreach workers and then to contact families directly through colleagues that have a good personal relationship because actually just to send a link out through an e-mail ...is a very tricky way to get feedback I think for particularly for vulnerable families that are maybe really busy or just maybe wouldn't normally engage in things like that.”

Practitioner

Factors limiting the outcome

Factors limiting regular family feedback in service design included families feeling their input was not necessary, timing of feedback requests, and cases where practitioners had no direct contact with the families, they were trying to get feedback from.

The first factor limiting regular feedback was that some children, young people, parents and carers felt their views were not needed or valued, especially when they have not been consulted on their views before.

"One of the traditional barriers is that the families we work with would not traditionally see themselves as the type who would be part of this [feedback] process, particularly with young people. They expect a certain cohort of young people to participate in consultation events, or even to be asked their opinion to be honestly. So, it's still a learning process for them to understand the value in their voice and how they can actually use it."

Manager

The second factor was that capturing feedback at certain times can limit the volume and detail of the feedback, such as when families are experiencing crisis.

"In periods of crisis, it is harder to get feedback from families because there is not time for this, and priorities are to respond to the crisis and de-escalate this." Practitioner

The third factor related to the challenges of capturing feedback in situations where it was not mandatory or where practitioners had limited contact with families. For example, collecting parental feedback on school-based support can be difficult if the service does not have direct communication with the parents or carers.

"The school-based Pathfinder is mostly with young people, and we get their feedback, but we are not getting feedback from parents. There are general discussions, but the convo doesn’t get recorded anywhere. It needs to be recorded."

Practitioner

Outcome: Children, young people and families say that services are designed to be: free of stigma; rights-led; and to meet their specific needs

This outcome was assessed as being partly achieved, based on strong and consistent evidence from interviews with frontline practitioners, and children, young people and families. There was less clear evidence of services being stigma-free and that CSPPs were monitoring this from the secondary data. While CSPPs said this monitoring was happening, they did not share sufficient supporting evidence. This suggests CSPPs may need support with monitoring and reporting on perceptions of being stigma-free in their delivery.

Children, young people and families interviewed were positive about the lack of stigma and the non-judgemental approach in the support they received.

“You feel really comfortable to kind of say anything…like you're not going to get judged by either [practitioner name] or the other worker there, or by the people around you.”

Young Person

Children, young people and families across case study CSPPs felt that services were designed to meet their needs. For example, a child supported in South Lanarkshire felt the practitioner “kind of just knows what to do," for example walking him to class when he needed it.

In South Lanarkshire, a parent also felt that the support adapted well to the changing family dynamics, which may have been missed if a whole family approach was not used.

"I think that's why it being family support is quite important because dynamics change in a family, everyone has different needs at different times...I only asked for help for one specific thing so if they had just kept to that route, they wouldn't have been able to identify all the other things for other people."

Parent

Factors enabling the outcome

There were four factors enabling this outcome: third sector involvement reducing the stigma associated with social work; changes to names of support; increasing the appeal of the physical space that support was provided in; and practitioners’ knowledge and experience.

The first enabling factor reported was that support delivered by third sector organisations helped families to shift their views of family support away from social work associations. For example, in Aberdeen, practitioners described families being more willing to engage in support because they were less worried about being stigmatised for having social work involvement, or worried about what might happen more formally if children’s services were involved.

“Families are not engaged in social work or addiction social workers because they're terrified, they're going to lose their bairns. They engage much better with [organisation name], who are a third sector organisation. The stigma's not there.”

Service Manager

Figure 12 CSPP Spotlight: Aberdeen City

Third sector partners (Children First, Barnardo’s and Sports Aberdeen) deliver support and remove the association with social work intervention.

Third sector organisations like Children First, Barnardo's, and Sports Aberdeen are playing a critical role in supporting children, young people and families by providing therapeutic services and reducing the stigma associated with social work intervention. By building trust with families and connecting them to relevant services, these organisations ensure that support was both accessible and timely, while removing the fear of being judged or labelled.

Frontline practitioners have noted the impact of these third sector partners in empowering families to access necessary resources with less hesitation. This approach has fostered trust and increased awareness of available resources (amongst children, young people and families, as well as staff members), leading to a more comprehensive support provision and ensuring families feel empowered to seek help.

The second factor was that changes to services’ names and support descriptions also helped to destigmatise family support access. For example, referring to ‘family support’ instead of ‘family services’ and describing support as ‘hubs’ or ‘centres in the community’ were less imposing to families.

“They're [families] all saying the same message: sometimes it's less stigmatising when we can get that support, and it doesn't feel like a social work intervention.”

Strategic Lead

The third factor was that the physical space in which families accessed support was important to families perceiving support as being stigma free. A relaxed, comfortable location, familiar to families, that did not elicit impressions of government services helped children, young people and families feel that support was not stigmatising. For example, South Lanarkshire’s Family Support Hubs are based in a building that was furnished to be comfortable and inviting, and Inverclyde used WFWF allocation to renovate a hospital to make it more welcoming to neurodiverse children. Providing support in the comfort of a family’s home also contributed to support feeling less stigmatising.

"If she [practitioner] wasn't in my own home environment, it'd be like another appointment, like something you have to do... it's probably quite oppressive. Whereas this feels like a friend is coming over, so you feel more relaxed and open to it."

Parent

The fourth factor was that children, young people and families interviewed cited practitioners’ listening and communication skills, and empathy, as reasons they felt the support they received was non-stigmatising.

“What was happening before accessing the support was more embarrassing, like being pulled into headteachers’ offices, arguing with people, that was more embarrassing than actually going into that office and being able to get support.”

Child

Practitioners’ knowledge and experience allowed them to adequately adapt support to meet families’ needs. Improved support capacity as a result of WFWF also allowed practitioners more time to develop closer relationships with families to help them meet needs. Work was also underway in areas to develop training and toolkits for delivering non-stigmatising service, such as Fife’s stigma-free toolkit; it was too early to assess the effectiveness of this pilot project.

"That relationship's [between practitioner and child] absolutely pivotal, being able to work with young people...The things they've managed to get him to do, I didn't think he would be able to do, and they've been able to work with him to support him.”

Parent

Factors limiting the outcome

Practitioners described how the framing of family support in a way that implies a deficit – in families’ skills, experiences, behaviours – perpetuates stigma. Practitioners interviewed felt the more embedded in a community family support is, the less this was a factor.

A small number of families interviews reported that some practitioners’ support styles were a factor limiting this outcome. This was particularly where it was perceived by families as ‘being done to’, ‘not listening’, and ‘sounding scripted’. A parent interviewed described her experience:

“The first practitioner [they received support from] was not so positive, as the practitioner was not really listening and just told me things I already knew... I felt that the practitioner was just reading things from a textbook rather than engaging with my situation and dealing with it.”

Parent

Outcome: Children, young people and families recognise available support is informed by them and feel their contributions influence service design

This outcome was assessed as being partly achieved, based on strong and consistent evidence from interviews with frontline practitioners, and children, young people and families.

Families interviewed recognised individual support they received was informed by them because support often adapted as their needs changed, as described earlier in this section. Yet, families were less aware of how wider services or support was informed by them. More work was needed to ‘close the feedback loop’, so that feedback provided by families informs service delivery, and that families recognise available support was influenced by their contributions.

Factors enabling the outcome

Limited evidence was available on the factors enabling this outcome. Evidence captured included CSPPs communicating to families over email or in-person, sharing what changes had been made based on family feedback. For example, sharing changes made to the timing, duration and structure of a coffee morning drop-in session for parents, to better suit parents’ preferences.

Aberlour’s Element 3 project, the Mother and Child Units, took a ‘you said, we did’ approach; the programme formally and regularly captured feedback, reviewed and acted on it, and communicated this back to residential families. For example, based on residents’ feedback, the programme adapted their mobile phone policy to enable women to remain connected to their older children. They also informed residents about the changes made in response to their feedback.

Factors limiting the outcome

Factors limiting this outcome related to the operational scale of family support. Practitioners interviewed described the need for service managers and leaders to inform them when and how decisions were made with family feedback, so practitioners could inform families.

“I suppose a challenge that I've found…it did feel for a long time we were feeding a lot of information upwards, the stuff from our focus groups [with families], and information that we've been gathering, but we didn't hear a lot back from decision makers.”

Practitioner

The diversity and number of organisations involved in family support indicated that it may take time for changes to use family feedback to inform wider family support delivery to embed throughout a CSPP. Practitioners noted this was slower with organisations or practitioners less open to practice and culture change.

“...on a systems level, it is still in progress...Inconsistencies across organisations that engage with children means that my role is to connect all the dots, get the right people in the rooms and child at centre of discussions... [there is a] stubbornness [among some of these organisations] towards wider system change.”

Practitioner