A frontline social worker involved with The Troubled Families Programme has branded the project a scam, which has dishonestly based its success off the back of other agencies’ hard work and coerces families to engage, providing a constant revenue stream that benefits local government.
We are not surprised by this development. Back in 2012 we expressed our concern, along with others, about the criteria being used to ‘detect’ or label Troubled Families. We didn’t, and don’t, care much for the term itself either, but what was so astonishing was that the government was prepared to identify families in distress using what can only be described as irrational criteria. In its initial phase, social work professionals would need to ‘tick off’ at least five of the seven criteria present. In 2016, this checklist appears to have shrunk (the whistleblowing social worker in the piece above tells us that there are now six elements to the check list, and only two elements now need to be identified before you’re officially In Trouble).
The social worker makes several observations about the Programme:
- There appears to be no qualitative evidence that the Troubled Families programme is actually responsible for ‘turning around’ the families it comes into contact with.
- Many families are assessed based on information which is between one to four years old. Most have therefore resolved their issues with the help of other organisations or through their own accord.
- As a result, those involved in the Project’s management are just mapping this progress and not actually contributing to outcomes, at all.
- Much of the basis for the ‘independent evaluation’ of the Troubled Families programme is done on cases which have been labelled high risk. This means they will be dealt with by a ‘flagship’ Troubled Families team, which has a smaller case load and so able to meet with the family a number of times a week. This practice is therefore financially unsustainable if applied to the programme at large, but it is used as the basis for evaluation of the entire programme.
- The programme is also being used to fill the hole created by cuts in local government funding. Refusal to engage in the programme is therefore not accepted by Troubled Families process managers, so staff use ‘creative’ tactics to make up the numbers. This has led to the coercion and harassment of families, who are being subjected to a ‘hard sell’.
- All of this has created a culture of unethical practices which sees staff dishonestly reclassifying cases so they ‘fit’ into the programme.
These are hugely concerning sentiments and ones which we should take seriously.
Will an independent body investigate the claims?
A very big thank you to the stellar Tracey McMahon over at SHE for alerting us to this piece.
Researching Reform 
Reblogged this on SHE PROJECT and commented:
Reblogged at SHE Project
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Why are we not surprised? Most of these families will be ‘troubled’ because the Social Services have become involved!
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Nobody with any experience of Social Services will be shocked by the revelation, It may help a little to explain why they behave the way they do, but that monkey was out of the bag a long time ago.
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Wasn’t this program doled out to stop kids going into care? If so, it failed! Figures of kids going into care are at an all time high!
And didn’t I read somewhere that the take up rate for families per local authority was very low!
52,833 “Troubled” families turned around! All hype! Don’t believe a word! I don’t see social workers being supportive of families. Quite the opposite!
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It’s hard to say whether I am pleased the truth has come out or that I am disappointed that I liked the concept but hated the name.
While Social Workers remain “child-centric” as opposed to family-centric (whomever the parent/guardian may be) looking after the needs of the child, means looking at the demographics of the parent/guardian.
SHE Project has emerged from six months of negotiations with SS on the reunification of a mother and her daughter. It has been one of the most arduous experiences our Project has encountered.
SHE Project would never have been able to support a mum from prison without the support of our parenting advocate and pro-bono family lawyer. LO is now home full-time with Mum but the relationship between Mum and SW was tense to say the least.
I have worked with too many women who have come up against SW that are so “textbook” it’s borderline stupidity. Had our Mum not had the support from the team at SHE, (I worked with this mum prior to leaving prison and she has been nothing other than focused on her daughter’s needs) I fear we would not have had the result Mum has to date. We are still waiting for the care plan – SW is “too busy and I have other cases” and every time I speak with her, she is rushing out to a Section 47.
Troubled Families was rolled out under the watch of Louise Casey. I support family-based centric programmes. What was an initial great concept, yet again has fallen apart at the seam and goes to show that a blanket model cannot work as a national roll out. Nothing in the TF programme took in demographics/socio-economic areas or the needs of families that are and still struggling.
Until localised services are properly resourced and funded, such initiatives are open to damning. Critical reviewing and observing are required of such initiatives before glib and speculative numbers are released. For the safety and protection of families, children and society as a whole.
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Reblogged this on World Peace Forum.
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Maybe you have never heard of the legislation in Scotland that would put in place a Named Person for every child to look over the wellbeing of every child. It is called the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act. Part of that act is that they will investigate and intervene early in the lives of families in order to prevent situations escalating into a crises later in their lives.
A recipe for tyranny.
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Hi Alice, the Scottish scheme is very intrusive into people’s lives and was just as bad as the veiws of the now retired Judge Alan Goldsack who said take the children away at birth from known criminals to prevent generational crime. If taken later they would become “products of a failing care system.”
After 43 years of making a very good living via the family courts and in his own words, “a failing care system”, his comments not only showed his short sightedness but also his bias against those families! Why didn’t he focus on the criminal class that have criminal activities on a much grander scale but have the money to extract themselves out of the courtrooms. They steal on a much grander scale but are protected and so never get inside a court!
For example, many corrupt MPs, fiddling the books, year after year, stealing from the taxpayer, often gain more than the petty criminals ever do but still have their children! Even the PM David Cameron & his wife were neglectful to leave their youngest child in a pub! What would Judge Goldsack say to that!
http://www.carterbrownexperts.co.uk/take-children-away-criminal-families-birth/
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The title itself – Troubled families – is misleading, demoralising and demeaning. As it is aimed at helping families experiencing problems of some kind it should be renamed “Families facing problems.” It should be led by social workers willing to engage with the families and helping them, not taking over and dictating when they have no idea what the families have gone through or have experienced. Each side needs to co-operate with the other via discussion with the one aim of resolving the problem(s).
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