FAMILIES

Support for All: the Families and Relationships Green Paper (January 2010)
This Green Paper sets out a wide range of measures to support all families as they bring up their children and to help families cope with times of stress and difficulty. They recognise that while all families need some help, there are families in our society with complex needs and others who require additional — and sometimes non-negotiable — support.
Document

PARENTING

Barnsley's Community Parents (2nd December 2009)
After an assessment showed that parents with young families suffered from social isolation, depression and anxiety about parenthood, the Community Parents programme was developed. Funded by Communities for Health, it essentially involved training volunteer local parents – also known as Community Parents – to help other local parents. It was piloted in Darfield successfully and is administered by Barnsley Primary Care Trust (PCT).
Information

DISABILITIES

Wave 1 Action and Learning Sites 2008-09 Final report (3rd November 2009)
This report sets out the work and progress made by the 12 user-led organisation (ULO) action and learning sites (ALS) funded as Wave 1 for the period April 2008 - March 2009.
Report

Our family, our future (3rd November 2009)
This new report, from Contact a Family, finds that families with disabled children have the same hopes and dreams as other families but often face bureaucracy and prejudice trying to achieve them. The report features the stories of 30 UK families whose children are affected by a range of disabilities and rare conditions.
Report

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Children and families experiencing domestic violence: police and children's social services' responses (September 2009)
In England and Wales, the Adoption and Children Act 2002 amended the definition of significant harm provided by the Children Act 1989, adding a new category of “impairment suffered from seeing or hearing the ill-treatment of another”. Since domestic violence and children’s exposure to it represent a widespread social problem, this amendment has acted to draw a potentially large group of families within the remit of children’s social services. The growing mountain of police notifications to children’s social services of domestic violence incidents where children are involved and the pressures that this has created have been noted by a range of commentators in the UK, North America and Australia.

The notification system has emerged against what is acknowledged to be a background of fragmented services for children and families experiencing domestic violence, and represents an attempt to improve communication and coordination between universal and highly targeted services. This research, from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, examined both the notification process itself and the subsequent service pathways followed by families brought to the attention of children’s social services in
this way. It also explored which other agencies contributed to services for families experiencing domestic violence and captured young people’s, survivors’ and perpetrators’ views of services.
Executive summary

FAMILIES

Nurse-Family Partnership Programme - Second Year Pilot Sites Implementation in England: The Infancy Period (23rd September 2009)

Young first time mothers are being helped to improve the life chances of their babies and fathers are more involved in the early years of their children’s lives thanks to the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) programme, independent research published today has found.

The second year evaluation report of the FNP programme by University of London, Birkeck, which is joint between the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Department of Health, found that:

• Effective delivery is having a positive impact on some of the most vulnerable young families in society;
• There are early signs that the programme is having a positive effect on reducing smoking during pregnancy and increasing rates of breastfeeding;
• Mothers value the programme and believe it has made a positive difference to how they care for their baby and their own aspirations for the future;
• Fathers’ involvement is especially high with more than half of fathers present for at least one pregnancy visit;
• A strong nurse-client relationship is key to its success – and clients are overwhelmingly positive about their family nurses, rating them on average 9 out of 10; and
• Nurses have reported that their clients are more confident as parents, were playing with their children more, wanted to learn, and had aspirations for the future.

Press Release
Report

FAMILIES

Think Family Toolkit - Improving Support for Families at Risk (September 2009)
Think Family means securing better outcomes for children, young people and families with additional needs by co-ordinating the support they receive from children’s, young people’s, adults’ and family services.

This Toolkit sets out some of the ways in which these practices can be developed ‘on the ground’ and represents an important step towards setting out how Think Family can be made a reality in day-to-day practice. Much of what it contains has been developed locally and reflects the enormous commitment and ingenuity of those working with children, mothers, fathers and families.
Toolkit

FAMILIES

Exploring Disability, Family Formation and Break-up: Reviewing the evidence (26th August 2008)
The overall aim of the project is to assess patterns of family formation and change where families include a disabled adult or a disabled child and the primary focus is on family units which include a dependent child. The research involves assessing currently available literature and conducting data analysis to explore the experience of relationship breakdown in families which include a disabled person, and examining whether there are associations that can be highlighted between disability experiences and relationship transitions. The research seeks to enable Government to build strategies which better support disabled adults and parents of disabled children, particularly in relation to employment roles and additionally, in relation to carer and childcare related needs. The analysis has wider implications for policies concerning flexible leave arrangements in relation to childcare, disability experiences and caring and for support for lone-parents.
Report

FAMILIES

Family Intervention Projects: An evaluation of their design, set-up and early outcomes (10th July 2008)
This report assesses the development and early outcomes of the network of family intervention projects. These projects aimed to reduce anti-social behaviour perpetrated by the most anti-social and challenging families, prevent cycles of homelessness due to this behaviour and achieve the five Every Child Matters outcomes for children and young people.
Report
Summary

Parenting in ordinary families: Diversity, complexity and change (11th July 2008)
Health and social service workers often have to decide whether parenting is appropriate. Similarly, policy-makers planning services for families need information about parenting norms and detrimental parenting. This report is intended to provide support for such decision-making, so as both to reduce the risks to children and avoid inappropriate censuring of parents. It examines parenting in Britain during early and middle childhood within different social and cultural groups. It also looks at how parenting develops and changes over time.
Report
Findings

BULLETINS/NEWSLETTERS

The month: issue 5, January 2008 (31st January 2008)

Emergency Care Bulletin, Issue 55, January 2008 (31st January 2008)

GP and Practice Team Bulletin, Issue 70, February 2008 (1st February 2008)

Children, Families and Maternity e-bulletin, January 2008 (1st February 2008)

Health Protection Report Vol. 2 No. 5 (1st February 2008)

CSIP Telecare eNewsletter February 2008 (4th February 2008)