Targeted youth support: redesigning services - supporting parents to maximise the effectiveness of structured parenting programmes

Issue

Data from the targeted youth support (TYS) change process and other sources mapping the current state of services in the pathfinder, uncovered an unmet need to provide more support to parents. There was a lack of clarity about what parenting and family support means and that was to leading to poor coordination and the potential for wasted resources.

Background

Parenting is a cross-cutting theme of the children's block of the local area agreement in Gateshead. As part of this, two managers with parenting expertise and local knowledge, have been seconded to develop a parenting plan. There are a number of parenting programmes running in the authority, but they are not running at full capacity. Reasons for this include:

• Some parents are unable to travel to the programmes public transport is poor in some areas and they don't have their own transport. The programmes run in the more central area.
  
  
• Some parents need further support to make the best use of the programmes due to literacy challenges. This is particularly true of the more therapeutic style programmes.
  
  
• Some of the programmes are part of specific initiatives, for example, the youth offending team runs a parenting programme but you can only attend if you are the parent of a young offender.
  
  
• There is a lack of affordable childcare linked to the programmes.
  
  
• Some very straightforward needs have been identified by family support workers, including walking to school, transporting to appointments and help with shopping but they haven't got the capacity to provide all of this support: demand outstrips supply.

Actions prompted by TYS

A TYS change team fed back the urgent need for better coordination between parenting support providers and the local area agreement parenting group. As a result, the local area agreement parenting managers were brought into the TYS change team to work on family support.

The TYS change process, through its multi-agency workshops and change teams, also brought frontline staff together, which enabled them to think about how the services they provide align with others while retaining their specialist qualities.

The family support change team has developed a model for a management panel to accept referrals; to identify a lead professional; and allocate resources to support families. This builds on the existing AMBER Panel (Youth Inclusion Support Panel, assessment panel).

Benefits and results

The prime focus of the TYS change process is on the experience of young people. Because of this frontline service staff have developed an even greater understanding of the importance of a needs-led, rather than service-led, programme.

One consequence of this is that services and agencies are working more collaboratively and sharing more information about young people. Finding solutions to issues around confidentiality and professional good practice is a priority. Shared training to address these issues was booked for staff across agencies in the pathfinder area in September.

In addition, two advice and support services for parents are being set up: a drop-in service for parents in three local schools, and a parenting programme to support parents with children with challenging behaviour. Parents can self refer to this programme.

TYS allows people to prioritise finding out more about other services and gives them permission to meet with each other and share information
Julia Moller from Barnados, Gateshead

The local authority

Gateshead is an urban and deprived local authority. Its TYS pathfinder is based in a relatively stable white working class estate, previously owned by the council, some distance from the town centre.

Click to read more case studies on redesigning services to help young people with particular needs.