Families First for Children Pathfinder

In April 2024 the Department for Education announced that Wirral has been selected as one of only seven local authorities in the country to be a Families First for Children Pathfinder. Being selected means the government have placed a lot of faith in our ability to transform children’s services, and is an endorsement of some of the excellent and innovative work which is already taking place across the borough.

The Pathfinder is part of the government’s programme of reform for children’s services as part of the Stable Homes, Built on Love strategy, which seeks to help families to overcome challenges so they can stay together and thrive. The strategy responds to recommendations from the Independent review of children’s social care, the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel report on child protection in England and the Competitions and Market Authority’s market study of children’s social care provision.

Pathfinder areas will be able to test out new ways of working to see what works well, which will then help the government decide how best to implement the strategy across the country as the new FFC Partnership Programme from April 2025.

The Pathfinder programme falls into four broad areas, and we will be working closely with families and partner organisations to ‘test and learn’ ways of working within each of them. They are:

Multi-agency Safeguarding Arrangements and System Reform

We want to establish a system-wide, ‘families first’ culture, which addresses structural inequalities, attends to the full spectrum of families’ contexts and needs, and facilitates a welcoming and effective system for children and families.

We want to create greater consistency and accountability across all multi-agency safeguarding arrangements, so that leaders at the right level are making the right decisions for local children and families.

This means….we will develop stronger and clearer multi-agency safeguarding arrangements, in line with working together 2023 and including an increased role for education, improved information sharing and engagement with children and families in designing and delivering reforms.

We will ensure that case management and information sharing processes can facilitate timely and appropriate information sharing across partners.

Please visit our MASA and System Reform page

Family Help

Families should be able to access the right help at the right time from the right people, so that they can overcome challenges, stay together and thrive.

This means…. we will build upon the excellent local practice in Early Help and Prevention to establish a targeted Family Help Service to support children and families with multiple needs who are eligible for or receiving Child in Need (CIN) or ‘targeted early help’ services.

Please visit our Family Help page

Child Protection

Establishing family help will result in a new approach to the way families access and receive support. This must run alongside a child protection system that protects all children from significant harm – inside and outside of the home.

This means…. locally developing a child protection system which protects all children from significant harm – inside and outside of the home – led by new, expert-led, dedicated multi-agency child protection teams including social worker lead child protection practitioners, alongside an information and support offer for all parents in child protection.

And, ensuring families have access to information, advocacy and support, and benefit from a widened family group conferencing offer.

Please visit our Child Protection page

Family Networks

Our vision is that every child’s right to a family life is prioritised wherever possible. Family networks are essential in supporting families to stay together and thrive. When this is not possible, they can themselves offer a safe, loving and stable family home and keep children out of local authority care.

This means…. involving the wider family in decision-making at an earlier stage throughout the system, and providing practical and financial support via family network support packages to help them keep children safe and well at home

Please visit our Family Networks Page

To apply for Family Network Support Packages, Wirral colleagues should visit the FNSP page:

Family Network Support Packages page.

Local Governance

Before embarking on your own FFC Partnership journey it is crucially important that you have the right level of resource in place and robust governance arrangements. In Wirral we found it very helpful to have dedicated FFC Programme Leaders supported by project management, communications, HR, finance and systems officer support.

The local government arrangements are set out in the graphic below and included a programme board to oversee the day-to-day progress and a multi-agency partnership board to scrutinise the success of the embedding of the programme.

Media

To help keep professionals up to date with what is happening with the Pathfinder developments, we will publish our media comms, newsletters and spotlight briefings.

How the Family Networks Programme is changing lives – media article February 2025

Further government funding announced for Children’s Social Care reform – media article February 2025

Pathfinder introductory newsletter September 2024:

Resources

Seven Minute Briefing

Resources for each part of the FFC Pathfinder will be kept on those pages.

DfE FFC Pathfinder Page:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/families-first-for-children-ffc-pathfinder-programme/families-first-for-children-ffc-pathfinder-programme-and-family-networks-pilot-fnp

DfE FFC Partnership Page:

 

Frequently Asked Questions
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Contact Us

The Pathfinder in Wirral is being locally led by two programme leaders:

Rebecca Hardy – Programme Leader, Practice
David Robbins – Programme Leader, Partnerships