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Patrons; Lady McColl; Sir Michael Birt; Lady Birt
Health, Social Security and Housing Scrutiny Panel Response to Health and Social Services White Paper.
Brighter Futures has some concerns over Section 4 of the White Paper and in particular the focus on Early Intervention by 2015.
As one of the few charities that focus on Early Intervention with families, from pregnancy with particular regard for bonding and attachment through a wide range of programmes, we feel that these have not been given serious consideration when the review of services took place.
As a charity we have been innovative in the work we undertake with 150 families each week. In 2011 we accepted 115 new families into the programmes. Our Outreach facilitator managed to engage 55 out of 60 hard to reach families referred into Brighter Futures in 2011.
We use a systemic approach, which is the focus of the Munro report, we wrap services around the family. Research also shows that the high level of learning takes place when individuals work alongside their peers and a key measure of success for us is when we see parents helping other parents.
We work in partnership with the main carer to support them in changing their lives and so the life of the whole family. Our work is built on the five golden threads as identified in the UK and by which we measure our outcomes. These threads are a way of reducing inequalities in families and so enabling children from disadvantaged families to be "school ready" We believe that Brighter Futures is one of the few agencies in Jersey that can produce clear evidence of success in these areas
- Language for Life
- Best Start in Life
- Knowledge is Power
- Engaging Parents
- Smarter Working Better Services.
All our programmes wrap around the family and our successes are in moving families at risk down a level and so breaking the cycle of intergenerational disadvantage.
We offer a wide range of programmes and include examples of which we believe address what is described as the toxic trio in terms of disadvantage which are domestic violence, adult mental illness and addiction problems:
Growing Together (GT) – Facilitator led / referral clients 5 programmes a week from birth to 3+ including a father's programme.
This is a Fun engaging group for parents/carers and children aged up to 4yrs. Based on Pen Green Growing Together Programme (see http://www.pengreen.org ) planned activities are incorporated where facilitators work in close partnership with parents to involve them in their children's early learning. Subsequently parents are introduced to the concepts of Involvement, Well Being, Schemas and Pedagogic Strategies. Short video clips are incorporated and discussed with parents in relation to the four key concepts.
Growing Together Study Group – Facilitator led / referral clients
The Study group embeds the underpinning knowledge that Growing Together group is based upon.
Parents become researchers' in their own child's development focusing on their child's well-being and involvement with learning.
The parents will look at how they promote and encourage well-being and learning within the group and in the home by conducting their own child study.
Camera and video footage taken by the parents within Growing Together will be used to support their child study and completion of a study book.
"Circle of Security;" is a program designed to alter the developmental pathway of parents and their young children, looking at ways of strengthening parents' ability to observe and improve their care giving capacity, offering clear pathways for providing a secure relationship.
Pool of Life- working with mothers in pregnancy to provide the best environment for the foetus. We are working with mothers who are potentially at risk, we carry out a full assessment on accepting the referral and complete a psychosocial/ depression questionnaire.
To conclude during the consultation process Brighter Futures attended the meetings held to look at services but at no time were we able to provide evidence of the work we undertook or were we asked to submit outcomes of our successes.
We believe that we are providing many aspects of the work identified in the MESH Early Intervention programmes, which have been identified for implementation. This is new to Jersey and therefore has no evidence of success in our community, yet those programmes already providing this service are not being considered. As a charity we do not understand this.
We have been told that we may tender for contracts to provide services but as these programmes have already been decided upon, it is difficult to see how this will happen.
We are curious as to how decisions were taken regarding next step when no-one looked at what is being provided already.
We would ask Scrutiny to consider the programmes of Brighter Futures against the Maternal Early Childhood Sustained Home visiting (MESCH) programme.
Thank you for your consideration, further evidence could be obtained from Mrs Patricia Tumelty, Coordinator of Services for Families for ESC, Deputy Rod Bryans and Deputy Judy Martin who with Deputy Kristina Moore attended a conference concerning NORPIP and OXPIP programmes which replicate MESCH.