Whole Family Wellbeing Funding (WFWF): year 1 - process evaluation - interim report

3. WFWF implementation and progress to date

Introduction

This section explores CSPPs' early CSPP implementation of the WFWF, and the enablers and barriers to successful delivery experienced to date. It should be noted that CSPPs are at different stages in their delivery of WFWF, with some still being in the planning stages and others having already started delivering new support funded by WFWF, with some upscaling current transformation activity and expansion of current service to meet demand.

A maturity model was developed early in the evaluation to help illustrate findings from the analysis. It included the stage of each CSPP's journey to delivering transformative support based on CSPPs' initial plans for Element 1 of the WFWF (see Annex 2). The maturity model will be updated for the final report.

Key progress of implementation to date

All six case study CSPPs cited getting the right resource and staffing in place for the support being delivered as part of the WFWF, as a key priority to date. This has focussed on recruitment of staff into newly created roles that will in turn deliver support as part of the funding. Examples included recruiting additional practitioners and social workers, WFWF project leads and managers, and data analysts to support performance monitoring.

From the qualitative interviews, four of the six case study CSPPs have also progressed to delivery of support to children, young people, and families funded through the Element 1 WFWF or expanding existing service provision.

CSPPs are implementing new services to support children, young people, and families and provide holistic whole family support (see spotlight box below).

Spotlight on…

In North Ayrshire, half of the funding has been allocated to The Family Centred Wellbeing Service (FCWS) which reformed an existing and successful service, called SNAP. The service now reaches younger age groups in more localities. The FCWS helps families and children through early intervention to keep young people out of statutory services.

WFWF has also allowed North Ayrshire to employ more staff on the FCWS, although they are finding recruitment harder for senior practitioner posts as there are not enough candidates locally. Despite this, the project is well under way, and the CSPP reported early successes around improved partnership working across services, and practitioners are already seeing fewer referrals into statutory services for children and families being supported by the FCWS.

CSPPs are also working to strengthen the way families engage with services provided by the third sector by creating a single point of access to these services in their local area and help support effective collaboration (see spotlight box below).

Spotlight on…

Aberdeen City aims to minimise duplication and inefficiencies in support provision by developing a single referral system for use across all public services, commissioned services, and third sector partners.

To achieve this, they have contracted an external company to create an online portal that will allow staff across all services to have an overview of all available interventions. This will include how to access support, and to monitor the use of support. The portal is due to launch in summer 2023.

The two remaining CSPPs have focussed on scoping and set-up work. For example, having discussions locally about how to build capacity and where resources should best be directed.

Experiences of implementing WFWF activity to date

Factors enabling implementation to date

The fact that many CSPPs have focussed on expanding existing successful activities was felt to be an important factor in them being able to implement at pace. Building on existing services meant that CSPPs relied on an existing body of evidence and experience around what works for whom in their localities. In one CSPP, around half of the funding has gone into expanding an existing service, which they already saw as being successful, enabling them to set up a larger team working in new localities and with younger children.

"We felt it [the existing service] could be better. We had existing staff, and a small budget so how can we bolster what we already had."

Manager

Many of the CSPP strategic leads highlighted the importance of the role of a dedicated leadfor driving forward the WFWF and leading on coordination across CSPP partners and the third sector. This was both in terms of having the capacity to dedicate to the design and implementation of WFWF activity and to keep CSPP and third sector partners engaged:

"I have worked on lots of previous funding programmes, and we didn't have someone whose role it was to just focus on delivering what we said we would for the funding. Having [the WFWF lead] has made it much easier because they are across everything and keeping it all on track."

Strategic lead

Factors limiting the pace of implementation to date

Recruitment of staff to deliver WFWF activities has limited the pace of WFWF activity implementation for nearly all CSPPs. At the time of reporting four of the six case study CSPPs had recruited all or nearly all their roles, and the vacancies for the remaining two CSPPs remained.

CSPP strategic leads and managers reported the main difficulties to be a lack of local applicants and the temporary nature of the funding, meaning CSPPs could only recruit staff on less appealing fixed-term contracts. One CSPP observed that the short nature of the posts advertised may also have negatively affected the quality of applicants. To overcome this, a few CSPPs decided to fill WFWF-related vacancies with existing staff rather than by advertising new roles. See the spotlight box below.

Spotlight on…

To overcome difficulties recruiting employees for short-term contracts, Fife decided to recruit staff on a permanent basis, guaranteeing new recruits a job after the end of the WFWF. They also found it useful to recruit from existing staff and then backfilling those positions. This approach enabled Fife to recruit to fill roles in the two new services described in the section above (residential outreach and foster care support programmes).

However, this approach did come with risks around finding roles for these practitioners if the new WFWF activities do not continue beyond the end of the funding period. Although strategic leads and managers did not have a definitive plan for this, they described aiming to embed all new WFWF activity within support delivery and make it business as usual if there was evidence of positive outcomes.

The context of social and economic change in which the funding is being administered is influencing the pace at which CSPPs can implement their WFWF activities. Strategic leads and managers also cited factors such as the ongoing post-pandemic recovery, pressures posed by the cost-of-living crisis, increasing demand for CAMHS and demographic changes, and issues around recruitment and retention in the children's services sector.