Explaining the ideas and reasoning behind the roll-out of the ‘24/7 In the Home’ service, Advanced , Mark Webb also outlines the key differences over this and existing assessment types.
Following on from our debut spotlight blog where we picked the brains of Panel Manager, Debbie Pedder about what her job entailed, we’ve now turned our attention to a brand-new assessment we’re offering. One that we believe will truly benefit our clients and the families they work with.
Hello again, Mark. Can you tell us where the idea for the ‘24/7 In the Home’ service originated? Was the concept one you’d been contemplating as a team for a while?
In recent years, the professional landscape has changed. A number of years ago residential assessment services were limited and there were few providers. Overtime the professional landscape has changed according to the demand for residential services.
There are now a number of providers of residential services that provide parent and child placements. In addition, a number of local authorities and independent fostering agencies provide parent and child foster placements.
Whilst parents may provide good enough care within the structured environment of a residential assessment facility or a parent and child foster placement, at the end of the placement there is a need for the family to transfer back into the community and into their home environment.
We found that we were receiving numerous requests for community based assessments following a residential fostering placement. Our 24/7 In the Home assessment programme has been devised over a number of years in order to plug the gap in the market and meet the needs of children and families.
The website describes the ‘24/7 In the Home’ service as an attractive alternative to a residential assessment. Can you tell us a bit more about just how this differs to the more traditional and established residential assessments in practice? What can this programme offer above and beyond the current assessment services?
The main difference is that the residential assessment takes place within a family’s own home. We undertake a detailed risk assessment before offering a place upon the programme. Within that assessment, the parents need to demonstrate that the risk factors are sufficiently stable to move into the programme.
Our parenting practitioners/social work assistants work with the parents on a 24 hour a day, seven day a week basis, to ensure that any child in their parents’ care is fully safeguarded.
The programme runs for six weeks with a review after three weeks. At the three week review period, we will consider whether a step-down approach can be facilitated or whether support needs to continue 24 hours a day seven days a week.
Alongside the six week 24/7 programme, we undertake a detailed independent social work assessment of the family. We are therefore well placed to provide a detailed, evidence-based assessment at the conclusion of the assessment process.
There are numerous benefits to the 24/7 In the Home assessment programme which enables children to be placed in their parents’ care within their own home environment. Consequently, a seamless approach is adopted.
All of the children are fully safeguarded within a home based environment and the parents have access to all of their support networks, including family, friends and professionals.
The programme enables us to provide bespoke parenting courses within a home based environment. We are also able to undertake additional work, for example, structured parenting courses, the Freedom Programme and anger management work. We have found that such an approach enables families to remain together and provides them with the very best possible chance of achieving change whilst the children remain in their care. It enables proceedings to be concluded swiftly and minimises delay and drift within proceedings.
What’s the feedback been like since the ‘24/7 In the Home’ service was introduced? From both social worker team members and parents involved? Have you already discovered ways in which the service has benefitted your clients and families involved?
We started the 24/7 In the Home assessment programme in the summer of 2020. Feedback from families has been extremely positive. Families welcome the opportunity to be assessed in their own home with their children.
The work undertaken with families is more effective and parents are able to see the immediate benefits from the work that we do.
Social workers and other professionals welcome this approach because it enables families to remain within their home environment and the social worker is able to undertake all of her statutory functions and be an integral part of the assessment process.
Managers, Heads of Service and Directors of Children’s Services have seen significant benefits. The seamless approach of the 24/7 In the Home assessment programme enables accurate evidence-based assessments to be prepared that inform decision making and care planning.
One of the most notable benefits for local authorities is the significant reduction in overall fees to local authorities in the longer term. Whilst residential costs are fixed on a per week or per placement basis, local authorities cannot manage the variable changes that occur, for example, delays within court proceedings has meant that parents and children have needed to remain in residential placements significantly longer than the envisaged time span. This places a significant financial burden upon local authorities and also means that families remain within a residential setting far longer than is acceptable.
I have three recent examples; one Metropolitan authority have informed us that they would have saved £128,000 had this assessment format been used. Another told us that they would have saved in excess of £90,000 and identified delays within the court proceedings to be a factor that had led to the need for a prolonged residential assessment. A third local authority indicated that they would have saved in excess of £50,000 because of delays incurred as a result of expert reporting times. Anyone would agree that these are substantial savings for any local authority.
Do you believe that this longer aspect format will catch on elsewhere and perhaps become more generally facilitated as a means of collating risk assessment information within the sector?
When we devised the 24/7 In the Home programme we focused upon parent and child placements within the home for new born babies immediately following discharge from hospital. During the initial stages of the programme, we found that the programme was suitable for families where the care plan needed to be advanced, for example, families that were in court proceedings. The assessments had been positive and that had led to a care plan for rehabilitation.
However, there was a need for further work to be undertaken in order to achieve reunification in the home. We have therefore, devised bespoke packages to enable rehabilitation to be achieved. This enables children to be placed in the care of their parents within their home environment and be fully safeguarded during the course of the initial transition period and beyond.
We have also found that the 24/7 In the Home assessment programme is able to augment our existing assessment facilities. One recent example would be a family who did not fully meet the criteria to move on to the 24/7 In the Home programme during the course of the risk assessment but did identify sufficient positive aspects for additional parenting work to be undertaken within the home as part of the independent social work assessment. We were therefore, able to offer an unprecedented fifty hours of direct observation to enable a detailed evidence-based assessment to be prepared. We were able to form clear recommendations as a result of this approach and identified additional work that needed to be undertaken in order to achieve reunification.
If you would like to refer a case for our 24/7 in The Home service, get in touch today.
