Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her Department's report Stable Homes, Built on Love: Implementation Strategy and Consultation published February 2023, what steps her Department plans to take to deliver Family Help services in the 12 identified Pathfinder areas.

The government has pledged £45 million to deliver the Families First for Children Pathfinders in up to 12 local areas over the next two years. The department will test the following elements of Family Help services within the identified Pathfinder areas:

• Building a multi-disciplinary workforce with the time and skills to help families, understand how a broad range of professions best work together as a team to support a child and their wider family.
• Delivering a single intensive and integrated service. We will work with local authorities and their partners to understand the best approach to providing more consistent and intensive support for vulnerable families and children. We will understand the best way to set out eligibility for Family Help, so that there is consistent national understanding of who should receive this support, but local areas can meet families’ needs flexibly.
• Delivering Family Help services based on the needs of communities. As part of this we want to ensure that the voices of families and children are heard. We will understand how to maximise the use of population needs assessments, based on data and local knowledge, when designing and evaluating services.
• Creating a more welcoming and supporting environment for vulnerable families and children. We want to deliver services based on the specific needs of parent and children and introduce a more effective front door to services. We will evaluate the risks and benefits of removing timescales for initial assessments as recommended by the Care Review.

The department will provide local areas with support and funding to deliver the reforms. We will co-design these new services by working with children and families, the local authority, schools, police, health and other key partners within the area, including the third sector. All pathfinder areas will test reforms across Family Help, child protection and kinship care.