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Child poverty – addressing the gap

• The child poverty Act passed in March 2010, with cross-party support, asks Local Authorities to set out their strategic priorities for tackling child poverty with local partners.

• In Kent we have framed this as a concern for whole families, and continue to identify this as a priority within our Children and Young People’s Plan (CYPP)

• It is now for Kent to determine how we respond as partners to the challenge of tackling poverty in our communities, in line with the emerging ambitions for Kent Partnership of tackling disadvantage, economic prosperity and building responsible citizenship

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The HeadlinesWhat we know about family poverty in Kent:

• Of Kent’s 308,583 children, 53,385 were living in poverty in 2007 representing 17.3% of all children in Kent.

• The largest number and proportion of children in poverty in 2007 lived in families in receipt of IS/JSA (38,825 families)

• Large majority of those children were in lone parent households as they make up a greater proportion of IS/JSA claimants than couples with children

• Educational attainment of children from low income families is worse than their peers

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Those at greatest risk

• Working Poverty is an increasing concern in Kent, and nationally, and presents ongoing risk in light of economic challenges ahead

• There were a greater number and proportion of children in Poverty aged 5-10 yrs (17,990) in Kent in 2007, however poverty is more prevalent in the general population of children amongst those aged 0-4.

• Complexity of family needs are indicators of likelihood of living in poverty – so issues of poor attachment, low self esteem and poor mental health will impact upon outcomes for the child. This has an impact on aspiration and extends beyond the boundaries of economic deprivation.

The Case: parental disadvantage severely limits a Childs opportunities to succeed.

• Poverty, unemployment, parenting alone, having a large family, poor or overcrowded housing, having a difficult child, parental illness and substance misuse, can have a negative impact on parenting - the factors are linked and mutually reinforcing (Ghate & Hazel, 2002).

• 142,000 families experience multiple and intergenerational deprivation and the children in 56,000 of these families also display serious ‘problem’ behaviours (Analysis of FACS - SETF 2008)

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GROUPS WHERE MEMBERS OF FAMILIES WITH MULTIPLE PROBLEMS ARE

SIGNIFICANTLY OVER-REPRESENTED

Children/Young people • Children in care (DFE)• First time entrants to the criminal justice system/diverted

from custody upon sentencing (HO/MoJ)• School excludees (DFE)• Not in education, employment, training (DFE)• Child Poverty (DFE/DWP)Parents• Women first time entrants (HO/MoJ)• Offenders on release/community sentence (MoJ)• Long term unemployment, benefit dependency and

poverty (DWP)• Drug and alcohol dependence (DH)• Mental health problems (DH) 5

The co-ordinated multi-agency approach eg Family Intervention Projects

Housing

Substance Misuse

FamilyKey worker / Lead

Professional

Education needs

Adults services

Police

Health Services

Childrens Services

Mental Health

Benefits Advice

Parenting

Co-located multi-agency team egWestminster Family Recovery Project

Substance Misuse

Family

Adults services

Health Services

Childrens Services

Mental Health

Benefits Advice

Key worker/Lead Professional)

Education needs

Police

Housing

Parenting

Other support services

• High quality key-workers with low caseloads (eg 4-6 families per worker) • Whole family working• Respectful/ persistent working styles using incentives/rewards/consequences

and flexibility to use resources creatively • No time-limited for support (average 12-18 months) and available ‘out of hours’• Ways of working that are empowering and build on family strengths• Effective multi-agency relationships (co-ordination, clear arrangements for joint

working e.g with CSC) • Multi-systemic Therapy, Evidence-based parenting programmes, Family Group

Conferencing, Family Nurse Partnerships

What have local areas found to be effective?

COST ESTIMATE FROM 19 AUTHORITIES

£7,795

£27,968

£40,341

£3,731£5,330

£1,367 £695£1,240

Local authority

Society

Police

Health Service

Criminal Justice

Social Services

YOT

Various

Commercial sector

- Effective family intervention and support yields average £81,624 saving per family per year.- each key worker generates £189,000 a year savings/cost avoidance in additional

care places and £73,800 in Police handling of neighbourhood nuisance and minor crimes

* Based on a sample set of 40 families/cases from 19 Local Authorities

Local Authority

Society

Police

NH

SC

JS

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AMBITION FOR CHANGE

• Taking action to tackle family poverty has been a priority for Kent for over two years.

• Locality based Children’s services teams have worked collaboratively to test approaches to supporting families

• This helps us to understand where we can have the greatest impact and provides a local partnership platform for taking work forward

• We now have the unique opportunity to link this priority directly to the three County wide ambitions proposed as part of the Vision for Kent.

• The three ambitions for Kent Partnership provide the framework within which family poverty can be tackled, by taking into account the priorities for economic regeneration across the County.

Long Term Unemployment

Low Aspirations

Poor Housing

Health Inequalities

Family

Breakdown

Debt

Family Poverty

What next?•Our understanding of need is robust in the context of Children’s Services, and is supported by the needs assessment undertaken for the development of the CYPP, and being used by the new local Children’s Trust Boards to target efforts and resources. •focus attention on tackling the root causes – ensuring targeted interventions for the most “at risk” families and prioritising and working with targeted communities. Targeted early intervention is crucial, early in a child’s life (pre birth) and early in the identification of risk. Focus on increasing family literacy, building parenting capacity, confidence and employability.

• strengthen integrated working across all services – children’s, youth services, adult services, community, health and economic development. Working together to build community capacity in targeted communities and involving those communities in solutions. Learn from KCC’s Poverty Pilot, Supporting Independence Programmes and Margate Task Force work.

•prioritise pathways into sustainable employment, linking with government programmes around job creation and reduction in benefit dependency. •ensure that our highest risk communities have access to the tools that will help them help themselves: building resilience and encouraging people to take control, to help themselves.