NCB’s response to new Families First Partnership Programme 

Alongside new funding, DfE has published guidance setting out how councils and their partners should reform family support services to enable them to provide help earlier to protect children from harm. 

Find out more on the DfE website here.

In response, Anna Feuchtwang, Chief Executive of NCB, said:

“The Families First Partnership Programme has enormous potential to provide earlier support and better address the needs of children within their family networks.

“With further investment in preventative services, shared workforce development and stability, these reforms present a huge opportunity to reorient child and family services towards enabling and supporting wellbeing.

“It is critical that roll out is informed by the ongoing evidence from the FFC pathfinders and that all children, including those with disabilities, are able to benefit.”

To understand how these measures will impact disabled children and those with special educational needs, read our blog on the Council for Disabled Children’s website.

The Children’s Charities Coalition – comprising Action for Children, Barnardo’s, NCB, NSPCC, and The Children’s Society – also issued a statement:

"Early intervention has the potential to keep vulnerable children and young people with their families, prevent problems from escalating, and reduce costs for strained local services.

"Therefore, we welcome the Families First Partnership Programme as a positive step forward in providing timely help. However, our forthcoming analysis of funding for children’s services will show that spending on early intervention is still far lower than what was spent on these services in 2010.

"Funding for early intervention must be the cornerstone of children’s social care. While we welcome the one-year investment as part of Families First, this much-needed down-payment must pave the way for sustained funding in the next phase of the Spending Review."