The Troubled Families programme has made “significant progress” reducing pressure on children’s social care services, according to the government’s annual evaluation report.
The report, published today, says the programme has supported 289,809 families since its launch in 2015, with 104,809 families joining in the last 12 months. 33% of families were making progress in achieving improvement goals.
The Troubled Families programme was launched in 20111 and is a series of targeted interventions for families with multiple problems, including crime, anti-social behaviour, truancy, unemployment, mental health problems and domestic abuse.
After a fairly slow start the latest report makes encouraging reading and focuses on performance of the programme against the government’s three “core challenges”: reducing demand on children’s social care, achieving service reform, and promoting social justice.
Whilst there was not a universal improvement across all areas, for instance there was an increase of 42% in the proportion of children on the programme who were the subject of a child protection plan, the report said: “Put simply, the Troubled Families programme appears to have reduced demand for costly children’s services compared to what would have happened if programme interventions had not taken place.”
The report added: “The Troubled Families programme supports the government’s wider efforts to promote social justice and has committed to increase the contribution the programme makes to tackling worklessness, whilst reducing parental conflict and problem debt.”
Read the full report here: