Norfolk – a county where children & young people FLOURISH.
Norfolk has a shared ambition to be a county where every child and young person can flourish. Through the work of the Children & Young Peoples Strategic Alliance (CYPSA) Norfolk has developed an outcomes framework and partnership approach, which aligns with the key principles of the Supporting Families programme.
The Strategic Alliance
The Strategic Alliance (CYPSA) brings together senior representatives from Social Care, Health, Education, Criminal Justice safeguarding partnerships sectors to collaborate and respond to the needs of children, young people, and families. Communities and the delivery of a shared Children and Young People Partnership Strategy was built on the https://delta.communities.gov.uk/document-repository/public/download?uri=/document-repository/Flourishing-in-Norfolk-strategy-(1).pdf
Flourish Pledge
Commitment to flourish is evolving, partnerships have developed a Flourish pledge initiative where teams and organisations achieve the outcomes of the framework through their practice.
The pledge ambition has been taken up by over 200 teams and organisations across all sectors. The first Flourish Awards were held in September 2023 and celebrated some of the amazing work taking place across the county.
Prevention & Early Help offer.
A key element of the strategy is focused upon prevention and early help, which reflects ambitions and priorities from the Department of levelling up housing and communities (DLUHC) and Department for Education (DfE) Early Help System Guide Supporting Families: Early Help System guide - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) and are focused upon:
Priority 1: Building Resilient Communities
Priority 2: Improving Early Identification
Priority 3: Strengthening Whole Family & Whole System working.
Priority 4: Building Collaboration & Capacity
Communities and Partnerships support partners to identify children, young people, families, and communities that would benefit from early help. In addition, Family Support Teams focus on providing targeted early help to families with more multiple and complex needs.
A collective offer of services supports everyone and delivered through, Digital self-help, Online communities, Integrated Commissioned Services, Voluntary, Community & Social Enterprise Sector, District Help Hubs, Community and Partnership support and the Family Support Team.
Whole council approach
The multi-agency prevention & early help board, alongside a supporting families sub-group has oversight of the evaluation and development of the early help offer. The council has continued to build strong foundations of providing Early Help and develop an ever-evolving offer to respond to needs of children, young people, and families earlier.
Supporting Families Programme
The links made between Norfolk’s ‘Flourish’ approach and the national Supporting Families Outcomes Framework has helped the council ensure that there is unity between both, therefore eradicating the need for the workforce to favour one over the other.
Practitioners considering Flourish outcomes will by doing so have also considered the relevant outcome from the Supporting Families Outcomes framework.
The Norfolk Flourish infographic shows specific links and key building blocks between Flourish and Supporting Families frameworks. https://delta.communities.gov.uk/document-repository/public/download?uri=/document-repository/Norfork-Florish-and-Supporting-Families-programme.pdf
The guidance for the programme can be accessed: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supporting-families-programme-guidance-2022-to-2025/chapter-3-the-national-supporting-families-outcome-framework
Flourish Outcomes
The Flourish Outcomes Framework was developed with young people and stakeholders and reflects the aspects of children and young people’s lives that they have told us are important to them:
- Family and Friends: - Children and young people are safe, connected and supported through positive relationships and networks.
- Learning: - Children and young people are achieving their full potential and developing skills which prepare them for life.
- Opportunity: - Children and young people develop as well- rounded individuals through access to a wide range of opportunities which nurture their interest and talents.
- Understood: - Children and young people feel listened to, understood and part of decision-making processes.
- Resilience: - Children and young people have the confidence and skills to make their own decisions and take on life’s challenges.
- Individual: - Children and young people are respected as individuals, confident in their own identity and appreciate and value their own and others' uniqueness.
- Safe and Secure: - Children and young people are supported to understand risk and make safe decisions by the actions that adults and children and young people themselves take to keep them safe and secure.
- Healthy: - Children and young people have the support, knowledge, and opportunity to lead their happiest lives.
Success
- 91% of families scoring 8 or above with regards to how their lead family practitioner has helped them.
- Step-down arrangements from social work to early help have improved that has seen the re-referral rate back into social work reduce from 29% (2021) to 15% (currently)
- We have seen a 65% increase in partners completing an EHAP (Early Help and Assessment Plan) since the introduction of a new EHAP and aligned practice roadmap.
- Supporting children & families earlier has seen on the number of children requiring a Child in Need plan reduce from 96.6 per 10k children (Q3 2020) to 72.3 per 10k children (Q3 2021)
- 92% of partners receiving support from the community & partnerships service report it has helped them improve outcomes for children & young people.
- 100% of our supporting families performance has been successfully met from 2021/22 & 22/23.
- Feedback from children & families working with Family Support Teams is incredibly positive with 9 out of 10 saying they are actively involved and that the service makes a difference.
- Provided over £230k and supported the start-up of over 200 new early childhood community groups to develop local networks of support for parent carers.
“You have always been there, just to help out constantly, if I needed you, you always supported my family and me.” [parent]
"I finally got back into school because of you, without you I wouldn’t have been able to enter the school at all.” [young person]
Conclusion
Norfolk’s partnership approach aims to understand vulnerabilities in families and communities and respond effectively by strengthening whole system approaches to prevention and streamlining pathways to support. The supporting families dashboard will provide the workforce with information to inform their analysis and approaches to practice when working with families.
They will continue to drive data governance and transformation at a strategic level across the partnership and provide direction on how data should be used to ensure services are effective.
By building capacity through the development of a family hub approach, they will continue to support community resilience.
They are establishing 15 new School and Community Zones, with each zone having a new team with an initial focus on supporting children, young people and families with inclusion and early help needs.
They continue to develop the maturity of prevention & early help approach, moving resource upstream to achieve the priorities of the Prevention & Early Help Strategy 2021-2025.
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