Rhian Beynon is Head of Policy and Campaigns at Family Action. Read her blog below about our concerns about the Government's Family Champions initiative.
This has now morphed into the
Working Families Everywhere campaign led by Emma Harrison of workfare company A4E.
For it seems from the Government’s point of view the main “trouble” with troubled families is that they don’t work.
It’s our experience too that many of the families we support do not work but they are also experiencing a range of other disadvantages.
For example for adults with mental health difficulties managing a household and parenting their children are extremely challenging. Their disability can affect their ability to relate to children and to earn.
If they don’t get our services or similar ones their children are at increased risk of developmental problems, poor performance at school, poverty and being taken into care.
We know many don’t get these type of services which is why we’ve launched our Against All Odds campaign.
With our support they can be great parents and many go on to volunteer, train and work. But our starting point in supporting them has to be their relationship to their children and their children’s development.
This is also vital to the children’s safety and well being. Supporting the adults to improve their parenting is how we win their trust and sow the seeds of achievement and self-belief.
If we knocked on the door as representatives of the DWP we wouldn’t get over the doorstep.
It’s therefore somewhat galling to read Emma Harrison's presentation to the UK Nordic Baltic summit that she thinks agencies have “poked” at troubled families in unfocussed ways.
We are focussed. It’s just that we focus on children and parenting first because that’s the route to success for so many of our families.
Read about our proven programmes here.