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EUROCHILD PEER REVIEW SEMINAR – ASSESSMENT PAPER
1. INTRODUCTION
This paper provides a collective report of the four case studies of inspiring practice presented for peer review from Northern Ireland, Bulgaria, Poland and Wales.
The report presents an analysis of the approaches and activities of each case study taking into account the political context in which they operate. Particular attention is drawn to their journey towards developing a strong evidence base which demonstrates improved outcomes for children. The challenges, strengths and limitations they have experienced in this area provide a good base for shared learning. This will assist seminar debate in looking at the best ways to develop a common framework on which to assess good practice in Eurochild and in considering the potential for transferring practice to other European countries.
The report also takes account of the valuable insights that have been provided in comments papers from peer countries and from other experts. In particular, Uwe Uhledorff and Matthias Euteneuer have considered the extent to which the case studies can be seen as examples of social innovation. This discourse is of particular significance owing to proposals within the European Union to move resources towards evidence based approaches that embrace social innovation and experimentation.
2. KEY MESSAGES
A Common Assessment Framework should place case studies into categories that allow for more meaningful comparative analysis and shared learning. Suggestions include categorisation by type of social challenge but could include other categorisations that separate innovative practice with emerging evidence from those that have a more robust evidence base
Amendments to the case study template may simplify contributions and allow for greater comparative assessment. This could include the adoption of a logic model of theory of change approach to describe the desired changes. Use of key words to describe theoretical processes could assist in the categorisation of case studies.
Quality standards and common principles in early intervention and prevention were a unifying feature in all the case studies. These characteristics have universal relevance across Europe and represent what is often not captured in evaluations of evidence based interventions. They could be adopted into the framework as essential principles to be demonstrated by case study contributors.
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Case studies highlighted that there was no common benchmark for the qualification level of staff involved in early intervention and prevention work in Europe. Therefore quality standards, as described in Northern Ireland and Poland’s case studies help to define the skills and competency base required by staff. These have relevance across countries.
There are emerging issues related to the high levels of qualification required to deliver evidence based programmes with fidelity and the resource constraints that result in lower qualified staff being involved in early intervention and prevention work.
The case studies differed significantly in terms of the social, cultural and political context in which they worked. A challenge therefore is how one can replicate practice across Europe when there is no shared political consensus about investment in early intervention and prevention.
The case studies from Poland, Wales and Bulgaria highlighted challenges in securing longer term funding and potential conflict in partnership working with state funders.
Northern Ireland’s case study acknowledged these tensions and recognised that commissioning processes have potential to damage integrated working in NGOs.
Northern Ireland’s case study reminds us that evidence of effectiveness can come from a range of sources and of the need for a balanced perspective capable of reflecting critically on quantitative and qualitative data and analysis. Their evaluation framework provides us with useful methodology and tools that can be harnessed and replicated in other European countries and has relevance for reflective working at grassroots, regional and national levels.
All the case studies are innovative and highlight Eurochild’s potential to respond to proposals within the EU to move resources towards evidence based approaches that embrace social innovation and experimentation. All the case studies have contributed positively to shared learning. An analysis of the potential to replicate their practice across Europe has been included in this paper. Seminar workshops will allow for more discussion on issues of social policy experimentation and the use of randomised controlled groups in evaluation.
3. THE CASE STUDIES - A SNAP SHOT
The Development of Early Intervention Focused Family Support Hubs
Presented by Children in Northern Ireland in partnership with Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Board and Barnardo’s Northern Ireland
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Objectives
To improve access to early intervention family support services by matching the needs of referred families to family support providers
To improve coordination of early intervention family support services by creating a collaborative network of providers
To improve awareness of family support services
To assess the level of unmet need for early intervention family support services and inform the Trust Outcomes Group
Family Support Hubs are designed to signpost families to appropriate services. Hubs will include organisations that provide a range of services. The exact range of services and the methods of delivery will depend on the make-up of the Hub. Hubs will include organisations that provide group work as well as individual interventions. They will also include organisations that provide services from specific centres as well as organisations that provide outreach and home and services. Where there are significant gaps in services the Hub process can work to assess need and identify gaps in provision. This information can be used to direct funding decisions.
Home- Improvement Loans for Low-Income Families and Families at Risk Presented by National Network for Children, Bulgaria/Habitat for Humanity Bulgaria
Aims to develop a model of social work practice which addresses early stage support for families in need and families at risk through providing support for medical expenses, government subsidies and family counselling. The programme provides assistance for improving the living conditions of the families in order to prevent child abandonment and institutionalisation.
Habitat Bulgaria aims to develop a model for a scalable, country-wide micro financing facility.
The micro financing schemes address immediate housing issues, such as general home improvements and sanitation needs.
Good Parent Good Start
Presented by Nobody’s Children Foundation Poland
The overall objective is to prevent the abuse of young children and enhance the parental skills of parents living in Warsaw through the development of an inter interdisciplinary Local System
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for Prevention of Young Child Abuse (LSP) whose activities include reaching families with young children with broad information about the programme, screening all families with children against risk factors and offering vulnerable families support and intervention in cases of abuse.
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Neath Port Talbot Family Action Support Team (FAST) Presented by Action for Children Wales
The broad objectives of FAST are:
To prevent family breakdown and promote reunification of families where appropriate, by supporting referred parents to achieve acceptable standards of care for their children through the Family Outreach Service (element of FAST providing intensive parenting support)
To provide practical support to referred families in their own homes, through the Flexible Home Support Service (element of FAST providing less intensive, practical support – around home conditions, cleanliness, food shopping, etc.)
To prevent family breakdown, reduce stress in families and promote the development of young children by supporting placements with local day care providers
Activities are shaped around the presenting issues and are usually delivered over a 12 week period via face to face support in the family’s home. FAST works with families, parents with learning difficulties and children identified for reunification with their families
4. OVERVIEW
The four case studies presented diverse responses to meeting social challenges in parenting and family support. This diversity gave rise to challenges in identifying common characteristics which would assist in shared learning and the exploration of possibilities to replicate practice.
Each example was rooted in its country’s culture and social policy framework. The case studies responded to different levels of vulnerability and ages of children as well as different stages of intervention. For example, Poland’s case study practice centred on an interdisciplinary preventive approach whereas Wales Family Action Support Team included work with children identified for reunification with their families.
All provided contrasting models of partnership. FAST is commissioned by the Local Authority.
Good Parent Good Start involves inter-disciplinary cooperation with support from City Hall of Warsaw and District Authorities. In contrast, Habitat Bulgaria is entirely led and implemented by NGO’s. Northern Ireland’s hubs are a virtual network of statutory, voluntary and community organisations.
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The activities in the case studies ranged from signposting families to appropriate services (Northern Ireland) through to ‘hands up’ support in Bulgaria via home improvement loans with accompanying health; education and life skills input from a network of local community based organisations.
Northern Ireland’s Family Support Hub model involves a structural change in how early intervention support is delivered and affects the whole country whereas Habitat Bulgaria has been working with local partners in nine selected communities. Good Parent Good Start aims to replicate its programme in all 18 Warsaw districts by the end of 2013. FAST provides targeted support in one Local Authority.
In describing their underpinning theoretical or conceptual framework, there was such variety in use of language that it was difficult to draw comparison although there were overlapping theoretical approaches to working with families in the examples from Wales and Poland.
‘Habitat Bulgaria follows the model of holistic and multi- disciplinary approach to sustainable social development’ (Bulgaria)
‘The programme is based on several theories: psychodynamic theories, learning theories, ecological and environment theories; attachment theories.’ (Poland)
‘The development of the Whole Child Model which provides a common way of understanding children’s lives and for understanding how society impacts upon children and how, in turn children impact on society.’ (Northern Ireland)
‘We take an eclectic approach so that we can adapt to suit individual need including social network interventions and social learning theory, behaviour theories and social learning theory.’
(Wales)
The challenge has therefore been to find commonality in the case studies. A similar view was expressed in the comments paper received from Uwe Uhlendorff and Matthias Euteneuer who concluded that in future, case studies should be categorised and compared according to the social challenge they set out to address. This would lend itself to a more informed comparative assessment.
However there is, of course, useful learning in the case studies which has application across all categories of social challenge. There are also ways that one approach to a social challenge may benefit or stifle the development of another approach to a different social challenge.
The focus of this paper is therefore to focus on useful areas for shared debate, transferable practice and messages that assist the peer review process in developing an assessment framework that responds to changing funding and policy directions in Europe.
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5. SHARED PRINCIPLES
A unifying factor in the case studies was their commitment to involve families in the planning, organising and development of practice. FAST works with families to develop an agreed service plan. Families referred to Habitat Bulgaria prioritise their most necessary home repairs, co-finance the renovations and are actively involved in the construction work.
The case studies refer to quality standards that they have adopted which inform their delivery of early intervention services. These help define the common threads and characteristics and principles which underpin effective family support and early intervention work. They include standards relating to relationships between professionals and families, multi- agency cooperation, accessibility, strengths based practice, needs led interventions, giving a ‘hand up’
instead of a hand-out’ and promotion of social inclusion etc.
The quality assurance framework developed by Good Parent-Good Start had much in common with that adopted in Northern Ireland. The latter is influenced by the work of Pinkerton, Dolan and Canavan (2006)1 who argue that agencies which practice family support need to evolve in the direction of ten core characteristics:
Working in partnership (with children, families, professionals and communities)
Needs led interventions (strive for minimum intervention required)
Clear focus on the wishes, feelings, safety and well-being of children
Reflect a strengths based perspective which is mindful of resilience
Promotes the view that effective interventions are those that strengthen informal support networks
Accessible and flexible in respect of location, timing, setting and changing needs, and can incorporate both child protection and out of home care
Families are encouraged to self-refer and multi-access referral paths will be facilitated
Involvement of service users and providers in the planning, delivery and evaluation of family support services is promoted on an on-going basis
Services aim to promote social inclusion, addressing issues around ethnicity, disability, and rural/urban communities
Measures of success are routinely built into provision so as to facilitate intervention based on attention to the outcomes for service users to facilitate quality assurance and best practice
The Northern Ireland case study describes these characteristics as defining the ethos, operational principles and the key standards for Family Support provision in Hubs.
These characteristics appear to have universal relevance across Europe and to an extent represent what is often not captured in evaluations of evidence based interventions. They are
1 Dolan,P.,Pinkerton,J and Canavan, J(eds); Family Support- From Description to Reflective Practice ‘ in
‘Family Support as Reflective Practice, 2006.
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the aspects of the delivery and implementation of a service which ‘form the critical but sometimes hidden, backdrop to any assessment of an intervention’s effectiveness.’2
6. SERVICE PROVIDERS, THEIR STAFF AND INTEGRATED WORKING
Case studies highlighted how integrated working helps enable access to the right skills mix of staff with the relevant expertise and experience. At FAST there are seconded staff from social services whose skills set is work with families with younger children. The Health and Social Care Board in Northern Ireland has provided some core staff on a short term basis to support hub development.
Poland’s Good Parent Good Start is strongly based on integrated working with a ‘scheme for co- operation’ that is agreed by all partners and allows for consistency of approach and safe working practices.
Habitat Bulgaria knows its success in providing a holistic and multi-disciplinary approach to sustainable social development relies on its ability to make meaningful partnerships on the ground with other NGO providers and demonstrates this through an impressive list of agencies who work in partnership to provide health, care social work, education support as well as specialist agencies meeting the particular needs of the Roma community. .
There was less mention in the case studies of the specific educational and training qualifications required of staff to deliver the activities although Poland’s Good Parent- Good Start referred to a highly qualified staff team made up of therapists, lawyers, psychiatrists, social worker etc. with the support of graduate or student interns.
This is an area that may need greater debate as it is clear that the picture over Europe is diverse as described in the comments paper provided by Daniel Molinuevo from Eurofound.
While a ‘Bachelor’s degree-level or three year vocational qualification in (social) pedagogy are the predominant qualifications for direct work with children and families’ 3 this is in no way the norm across Europe.
In a UK context there are signs of growing polarity between the high level of qualifications required to deliver evidence based programmes including Multi Systemic Therapy and Family Functional Therapy and the relatively low qualifications of staff delivering family support in many early years’ services. The commissioning climate with resource constraints drives down the
2 Moran P.,et al (2004) What works in parenting support; A review of the international evidence.
Research Report No RR574, Nottingham:DfES
3 Boddy,J.,Smith,M. and Statham,J (2011) ‘Understanding of efficacy; Cross-national perspectives on
‘what works’ in supporting parents and families’, Ethics and Education, 6,2; 181-96
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capacity of voluntary sector organisations to deliver services with more qualified and therefore more expensive staff.
Where there is no benchmark for qualifications, the operational principles adopted by Northern Ireland can go some way to ensure that there is shared understanding of standards involved.
Poland’s Good Parent- Good Start standards refer to the skills and competency base required by staff which could have good applicability across countries. These include:
Continuous training and development of knowledge and skills
Familiarisation with risk factors and screening methods
Knowledge about the specificity of psychological and the social situation of families with small children
Combining specialisation with broad general knowledge
Undergoing regular supervision
Personal development
In some comments papers, attention was rightly drawn to the need to value relationship based working as a way of engaging with families, building their resilience, and empowering them to do things for themselves. As such the personal qualities of staff including empathy are particularly important.4 Northern Ireland refers to the development of resiliency based user evaluation and it would be interesting to see if this assists in evaluating the significance of the relationship and engagement between staff members and service users.
7. Political Context
Mary Daly’s synthesis report for the Peer Review in October 2011 provides a useful overview of the policy context at European level acknowledging the growing interest in parenting support in Europe in the last decade or so. Some of the elements she drew attention to were policy and institutional frameworks around children’s rights, family friendly initiatives, early years’ provision and the balanced participation of women and men in family and working life. Parenting support is relevant to Europe 2020 and is implicit in two of the ten integrated guidelines for example reducing those living in poverty by 20 million and promoting social inclusion (guideline 10.) Northern Ireland’s case study named its approach as being underpinned by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, specifically Article 18 regarding parents’ primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of the child and their rights to assistance in their child-rearing responsibilities.
4 Crepali,C., Paquinelli, S., Castegnaro, C., Naaf, S., Sarmeto Pereira, M.T., Peeters, J. and Vandekerckhove, A. (2011) Parenting Support in Europe; A comparative study of policies and practices, Final Report, Dublin; European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions.
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Northern Ireland and Wales’s practice is firmly rooted in the context of their national policies for early intervention whereas Bulgaria and Poland’s case studies reflect efforts to provide interdisciplinary, holistic support in the absence of national frameworks. Habitat Bulgaria has linked its outcomes to the Bulgarian priority of deinstitutionalisation. Good Parent- Good Start has worked effectively at a local level to be active members of a municipal working group which has developed a framework ‘Programme Family’ but considers an obstacle to have been insufficient involvement from the health sector and would welcome a national framework for early, universal family support. A challenge therefore is how one can replicate practice across Europe when there is no shared political consensus about investment in early intervention and prevention.
8. Funding
Poland’s Good Parent Good Start programme is funded by various time limited sources including World Childhood Foundation, Warsaw City Hal, district authorities and support from the Velux Foundation. In their comments paper Nobody’s Children Foundation referred to funding as:
‘a big issue. The programme is complex involving 14 professionals in the NCF itself. NCF is financed on a project basis which does not guarantee stability. In Poland, there is a tendency to finance a project for one period and to not finance its continuation.’
Hopefully FAST’s funding has been extended since the completion of the case study as at that stage funding had only been secured until March 2012.
Habitat Bulgaria’s programme is financed by Habitat for Humanity International, however the model of recycling loans enables it to achieve sustainability and continuity. It is looking for external funding to widen its operation. In their comments paper reference was made to the general challenges of securing on-going funding for NGOs in Bulgaria
‘Each service starts based on project financing (limited in time and not sustainable) …. It may become financed by the state after a long and complicated procedure. Once it becomes state budget financed service, the local authority may decide if the service will be managed by an NGO or by the municipality itself. Often services started by NGOs are being taken by the state and given to the local authorities.’
The funding challenges presented in these three case studies, highlight real concerns for sustainable NGO activity at a time of budgetary constraints and it is therefore interesting to see how this is addressed in the processes for allocating funding in Northern Ireland.
Funding for the Hubs is mainly from statutory sources with a government funding stream for family support particularly targeted at developing early intervention services.
The Northern Ireland comments paper highlighted some of the tensions that may arise
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‘The Hub process is founded on collaboration and integrated working on the basis of organisations putting aside their own agendas to support the greater good. Protecting the funding of the NGOs that provide early intervention services has been a challenge. A dedicated funding stream was developed for this.
The allocation of funding in Northern Ireland is based on a competitive tender process. There is a dynamic in competitive tendering which can cause damage to the relationships between organisations which are central to integrated working. An organisation which has been very involved in the process could lose its funding in a competitive tender to another organisation which does not want to be involved.’
Northern Ireland, like many European countries is looking to create efficiencies by ensuring better co-ordination of services and less wasteful under-employment of services and duplication. This perspective is however based on value judgments about voluntary sector organisations duplicating each other. This does not necessarily take account of the views of service users who may have reasons for valuing one service’s delivery of parenting support to another. Smaller community based organisations may not have the infrastructure to compete in a tendering process or to participate as members of hubs. At the same time they could be meeting hidden needs of some of the more marginalised service user groups e.g. asylum seekers. This theme of duplication of services was the subject of debate at the last peer review meeting.
It is intended that the work of the hubs should not be overly bureaucratic so existing referral practices can be maintained without need to go through the hubs. This does present some challenges (which may well have been resolved) in that a lot of early intervention work will be happening without reference to the hubs so levels of need or the value of some services sitting outside of the hub network could be underestimated.
These funding challenges and potential for conflict between state and NGOs are common to all. The Northern Ireland case study drew attention to successful elements from the Hubs which go some way to overcome these challenges including:
Leverage of funding from a range of sources to support the Hubs. The early success of the Hubs has led to increased funding for some of the participating organisations.
Developing dialogue between the Hubs and other agencies about working together, for example between some of the hubs and regeneration bodies. Developing dialogue between the Hubs and community developing organisations around children and young people’s issues and how to work together more effectively
9. LESSONS LEARNED – FOCUS ON EVALUATION
All case studies represent recent service developments with the models from Northern Ireland and Wales being in their infancy, dating from 2011. Poland’s ‘Good Parent -Good Start’ was first
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piloted in one district in Warsaw in 2007 and Bulgaria’s home improvement loan programme was first piloted in 2008. Therefore they are all services that are on the beginning of a journey to gather evidence of their effectiveness. Key areas of progress they have made are as follows:
NORTHERN IRELAND - The Development of Early Intervention Focused Family Support Hubs
Story so far
The evaluation will roll out shortly. The Hubs are starting to use quality assurance standards to establish baselines. Three sub groups of the Children and Young Peoples Strategic partnership have been set up with part of their brief to evaluate this process
Work has begun on tracking aggregated population level trends, and a framework is in place. What is needed in order to fully develop outcomes measurement for Early Intervention is a refinement of population based level 2 indicators
Gathering and evaluating existing research on how to influence each of the outcomes
Carrying out a baseline audit of the quality of early intervention programmes in place in Northern Ireland
Reviewing the progress of the RCT based programmes in Northern Ireland
Developing and piloting a standardised resilience based framework for evaluation of Early Intervention programmes across Northern Ireland
Developing an Evaluation Framework to measure the added value of local integration of services (Family Support Hubs)
BULGARIA - Home- Improvement Loans for Low-Income Families and Families at Risk Story so far
Pilot in 2008 in one village demonstrated that small home improvement interventions in the Roma communities and with other socially disadvantaged groups resulted in large scale community energy and support.
Project implementation is monitored via monthly meetings of work projects
All clients of the programme are asked to complete a short evaluation form 18 months after the intervention in order to identify how much it has affected their living conditions
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and lifestyle
Plan to run an annual evaluation forum with the participation of representatives from all local partnered organisations and stakeholders. A small publication about outcomes, lessons learned and recommendations will be distributed at each annual meeting
Cost effectiveness- sustainability and continuity built in through recycled loans
POLAND - Good Parent Good Start Story so far
Pilot in 2007 was positive with decision made to gradually introduce the programme to the whole area of Warsaw
Quality Assurance standards in place
Satisfaction levels monitored for single activities
Before and after questionnaires in relation to workshop activities
External evaluation and clinical supervision provided to clinical staff
Recognises needs to work on systems to measure the impact of the Local System for prevention of Young Child Abuse (LSP) on outcomes for children
Wants to address and setup of evaluation of clinical work to go beyond parent satisfaction to see whether a real change has taken place.
WALES - Neath Port Talbot Family Action Support Team (FAST) Story so far
Use of Outcomes Based Accountability™
Report Card which provides easy to read information on what the service did, how much it did and were people better off
Use of Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaires to measure the before and after
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Monitoring of repeat referrals over time to measure success
Matching of outcomes achieved to those expected at time of referral
Outcomes based work with families including service plan, agreed timescales and review cycle
Cost effectiveness- no cost benefit analysis has taken place but can see that savings from one family alone not requiring children to be removed can amount to 75% of service’s annual budget
Areas of strength and challenge that emerge from the case studies include the following:
Strengths
Pilot of service before replication in other villages and districts in Bulgaria and Poland
Habitat Bulgaria’s follow up of progress 18 months after intervention
Yearly stakeholder meetings planned by Habitat Bulgaria
Use of Outcomes Based Accountability™ at FAST
Use of Quality Assurance Standards by Good Parent -Good Start
Challenges
Challenge in measuring the effectiveness on outcomes when working in partnership with other agencies- how can you know which activity is making the most difference?
Challenge when a single agency is offering a range of interventions to a family to know which elements have most or least impact
Lack of fidelity to evidence based programmes e.g. FAST uses elements of these programmes to support changes in parental attitudes and behaviours
Need for longer term follow up of impact of interventions to measure effectiveness over time
Opportunities- Moving Forward
In developing a common assessment framework which can provides a credible and robust base on which to assess inclusion of good practice it would help if the case study template was simplified and allowed for more consistency in the language and ways contributors describe the
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change process. This will be discussed at the peer review but a logic or theory of change model may assist in this respect.5 This approach is echoed in literature on social experimentation in Europe.6
The peer review process will consider in depth what qualifies as evidence. This is of particular relevance at a time of budgetary constraints and proposals within the European Union to move resources towards evidence based approaches that embrace social experimentation using randomised control groups to evaluate specific value added.
The case study and comments paper from Northern Ireland helps shape this debate by reminding us that evidence of effectiveness can come from a range of sources as illustrated on the following diagram.
Reference is made to the work of Canavan, Coen, Dolan, Whyte 20097 who consider the tension between what have been described as ‘blueprint’ models versus subjective practice- based models of intervention arguing that the former approaches, based on highly prescribed
5 http://www.whatreallyworks.org.uk/ www.theoryofchange.org/
6 http://ec.europa.eu/social/innovationconference
7 Canavan J, Coen L. Dolan P, Whyte L; ‘Privileging Practice; The Challenge of Integrated Working for Outcomes for Children’ Children and Society 23 pp377-388 (2009)
Evidence from service evaluations
Practice knowledge and
experience experience
Feedback from Audit and Inspection
Service User Views Research
Evidence
Knowledge
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structures and process have the potential to negate relationship based working, good questioning in the interests of the child and understanding of individualised nuances of need.
There are also significant limitations to a subjective practice approach which is not informed by external evidence. What is really needed is a balanced perspective capable of reflecting critically on quantitative and qualitative data and analysis.
The evaluation framework which is being developed in Northern Ireland addresses the significance of evidence based programmes and is keen to develop more understanding of their application in a Northern Ireland context. Innovative ways to look at effectiveness are being tested out via a resilience framework. Research is used to inform knowledge of what interventions are most likely to impact on outcomes.
To an extent, the ten core characteristics for family support that underpin Northern Ireland could be turned into the reflective questions that need to be asked at service level; the backdrop to an evaluation of a service’s effectiveness.
This evaluation framework may well provide us with useful methodology and tools that can be harnessed and replicated in other European countries and has relevance for reflective working at grassroots, regional and national levels.
10. SOCIAL INNOVATION AND THE CAPACITY TO IMPLEMENT ELSEWHERE
Uwe Uhlendorff and Matthias Euteneur completed a comments paper that considered the case studies innovative potential and capacity to be implemented elsewhere. They reviewed each case study separately on the basis that they were responding to very different social challenges. Their paper is particularly relevant to the proposals within the EU to move resources towards evidence based approaches that embrace social innovation and experimentation but should be considered in full alongside this report.
However in brief, they considered the holistic approach of Habitat Bulgaria to be highly innovative but were concerned that there was lack of governmental programme participation.
Although the focus is on reducing child abandonment and institutionalisation, they felt attention should also be given to raising the quality standards of residential and foster care which will continue to be required. (To an extent, this issue may well have been addressed in the case study which referred to the Bulgarian government ‘making efforts to introduce foster carers nationally… as well as to encourage adoption.’) They saw relatively high potential for implementation of this practice in other EU member states, especially the system of interest free loans and provision of monitoring and support by social workers that has a high potential to improve the living conditions of families in ‘poorer’ European member states.
In relation to Poland’s case study, parallels were drawn with the provision of other evidence based parenting programmes which made it difficult to identify the innovative aspects of this particular programme, although the inter disciplinary co-operative network of NGOs, public services and local authorities was considered to have innovative potential. The qualitative
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standards that have been referred to earlier in this report were also seen as innovative. There was scepticism that the prevention, screening methods and training programmes would reduce child abuse and neglect in that it may lead to greater awareness and identification so it was suggested that the innovative potential was more lodged in how access to family support services was enhanced. It was considered that there was a relatively high potential for implementation of this practice in other European countries.
The case study from FAST was viewed as a service working with a higher threshold of vulnerability in families and being more about intervention than prevention. The approach was considered as being in the tradition of ‘Family First’ activities. It was described as innovative in that it provided flexible, tailored support to families which prevent withdrawal of their children where there is still a chance of improvement in parental skills and responsibilities. The established evaluation criteria were seen as helpful in enabling FAST to join with others in Europe to collect experiences of working with this approach. Some challenges were envisaged in that this is not a standardised programme.
The Family Support Hub model in Northern Ireland was considered to be of particular interest to the European Union as most public sector organisations will face new social demands for redistribution in the context of budget austerity. Innovation was seen in three key changes
A transition from individual organisational planning, to joint planning and eventually joint commissioning of services
A move from service based planning to needs based planning and from there to rights based planning
A focus on outcomes bringing rights and needs together
Some questions were raised about the perceived lack of participation of service users in this process. These concerns can be readily answered by colleagues in Northern Ireland given that outcomes based assessment and planning processes are well established in their family support work.
Potential obstacles including issues about power and control, case monitoring and funding were raised based on similar experiences in Germany which were described as taking a couple of years to overcome.
Overall the conclusion was that it would be difficult to transfer this model as it would rely on very specific local circumstances that would be needed to be changed quite extensively to fit another country’s legal and administrative structures.
It is also worth considering the peer countries’ comments about the Northern Ireland model and aspects of transferability. Habitat Bulgaria questioned how the funding of social services in Northern Ireland is organised in order to allow joint working of statutory agencies and civil organisations without conflicts:
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‘Social Services in Bulgaria are not well developed and generally there is a conflict of interests between the state, the local authorities and the civil organisations…. Often services started by NGOs are being taken by the state and given to the local authorities.’
Poland’s Good Parent- Good Start co-ordinator was attracted to several aspects of the Hub Model and could see elements of transferability particularly in a move to strengths- based practice, the creation of a data base to improve signposting and the development of evaluation tools.
‘Joined planning and joined funding seem an excellent idea to optimise cost effectiveness, but necessitates an underpinning common philosophical framework or programme. Where there is no such programme or strategy, which is the case of Poland, single institutions have specific plans and different sources of finance that it is difficult to bring together…’
These concerns are acknowledged in Northern Ireland’s case study which recognises that it
‘needs to be underpinned by a process of integrated planning across statutory organisations and a commitment to working across agency boundaries. Otherwise there will be a problem of lack of co-ordination as different government agencies fund their own priorities without regard to how they could make a bigger impact by jointly funding.’
Report Author: Juliet Ramage Date: 24.05.12
