Earlier this week, the Government launched the newly-named ‘Supporting Families’ programme, backed by £165 million funding. Its work includes supporting people to leave abusive relationships, getting the right joined-up support for those with mental health issues, and helping people to find work.
Through the programme, which began in 2012, families are assigned a dedicated keyworker who works with every member of the family and brings local services together to resolve issues at an early stage before they develop into more significant problems.
Since 2015, over 400,000 vulnerable families have received support to help them turn their lives around and build brighter futures, and over 870,000 families have benefited from the programme’s ‘whole family’ approach to tackling problems.
The programme has delivered significant results while reducing costs of services for the taxpayer – with the proportion of children supported by the programme going into care reduced by a third and the proportion of adults going to prison reduced by a quarter.
Over the years, I've worked with outstanding organisations through my background in social justice policy, and I'm delighted that programmes like this with a track record of success are receiving the recognition and additional funding they need to help more families across the country.
