1

Intention of the ‘A Fairer Brighton & Hove Disadvantage Strategy Framework’ and reflections on the definition of disadvantage

 

There is a significant amount of work happening across the city which supports children, young people and families at risk of disadvantage.  

 

The purpose of this framework is to:

·         Provide a collated view of that work & support in its delivery

·         Provide insights to its impact across the city

·         Provide a platform for holistic understanding of issues for families and collaborative problem solving  

·         Provide guiding principles that should be at the heart of all the work we do with and for families at risk of disadvantage 

 

This framework can be used as a critical friend, helping to drive work in the city forward.  

 

A set of guiding principles have been developed from direct feedback from our communities and these should inform work we plan, deliver and review with families at risk of disadvantage. These principles can continue to develop during the lifespan of this framework as we strive to capture more of our communities' voice, to better understand their needs and experiences. 

 

Achieving a city definition of what we mean by ’being at risk of disadvantage’

There are many ways of describing or understanding how a child, young person or family may be at risk of disadvantage. These will vary greatly depending on factors such as: age; race; gender; whether they are disabled or have additional needs; whether they have a low income or have worklessness at home; whether they are care experienced; where they live in the city and what type of services they need and use.  

 

During the lifespan of this framework, we want to:

·         Develop a citywide understanding of what ‘being at risk of disadvantage’ can mean in Brighton & Hove

·         Share more understanding on what services, commissioners and leaders need to be doing more of to tackle it and to remove barriers.  

 

It is important to highlight, that there is a recognition that children and families may be at multiple risk of disadvantage, and that this further compounds their likelihood of poorer outcomes than others in the city. 

 

One of the guiding principles emphasises the need to be clear, that the responsibility for fixing the ‘problem of disadvantage’ does not solely sit with those that are at risk of it. Being at risk of disadvantage is not a fault or deficit of the individual or a family concerned, but a reflection on the barriers placed by society and systems. Recognising and addressing this is a key element of this framework. 

 

We need to acknowledge the intersectionality in individuals and families and the many strengths these bring, but also recognise how those very characteristics or experiences may lead to a multitude of barriers which compound the risk of disadvantage. 

 

“This should not be a deficit model. Strategies, programmes and interventions should recognise the strengths of those who they are responding to”  

Quote from a family March 2022. 

 


2

What families and frontline services tell us

 

We asked communities what works well for them, what they think about being at risk of disadvantage and what should be done to better support them. The feedback directly informed the creation of this framework, especially the guiding principles in the next section. Here are some of the comments we received.

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3

The guiding principles

 

Feedback from communities, from the Early Help Review and learning from existing strategies and programmes, which support families at risk of disadvantage, helped inform the development of these guiding principles. We want all to adopt these when working with children, young people or families in the city who may be at risk of disadvantage. During the lifespan of this framework, we want to continue to develop these.

 

·         It is not the sole responsibility of those at risk of disadvantage to solve the problems they face 

·         Give communities the right support and decision-making roles for matters that affects them 

·         Community experience and needs must be at the heart of service design  

·         Communities must be included and feel respected and trusted – we must position service users as one of the experts round the table  

 

·         Our work and how we approach it must be trauma informed 

·         An individual or communities’ lived experiences are valued

·         We must better understand and recognise the range of ways someone may be at risk of disadvantage and how the negative impact can be compounded by multiple factors 

·         People described as ‘disadvantaged’ can feel stigmatised and ‘done to’ and it can also exclude those who do not fit into the normal categories.

·         Tackling disadvantage should be more positive and impactful, making sure services and society does include everyone. People are disadvantaged by the system, rather than being disadvantaged by their characteristics

·         Systems need to include and work for everyone, rather than viewing those at risk of disadvantage as outsiders, or as failing, who need to be helped to fit in to the current system

·         A sense of belonging is essential

 

 

 

·         Hearing and responding to the voice of the under-served is essential.  

·         Services must rethink the way they communicate  

·         Involve communities at the beginning of discussions about what they need and how services might be changing.  

·         We want an approach which aims for inclusive systems that do not disadvantage anyone, and the language and images used should match this approach

 

 

·         Creating a sustainable future is essential for us all, but especially for those who are at increased risk of disadvantage

·         Supporting families at risk of disadvantage better is an essential element of the proposed Early Help transformation by developing Family Hubs

·         Brighton & Hove’s involvement in the Supporting Families Programme is a key part of how to better improve the lives of families at risk of disadvantage and we must continue to support the outcomes of this programme

 

 

·         For families with multiple problems an integrated “whole family” approach which recognises and deals with their interconnected problems is most effective 

·         Whole family working means transforming services from a number of unconnected professionals with their own assessments, thresholds and measures to integrated, family-focussed, outcome-based working 

·         Whole family working will improve outcomes for families and reduce the demand on costly specialist services 

·         Services should explore more options for appropriate collection, recording, sharing and analysis of data

 

 

4

Data – what city-wide data on the risks of disadvantage looks like

 

Our intention within this framework is to better describe the breadth and depth of the risks of disadvantage faced by families and to use data to inform this. Our intention during 2023 is to work closely alongside the emerging Supporting Families Programme outcomes framework to identify, collect, analyse and present data around a range of risk factors affecting families.

 

National context

There are several national workstreams we are involved in to help local authorities make better use of data and there is a particular focus on early help data within that.

 

Data systems, processes and information flows have been highlighted nationally as underdeveloped in Children and Family Services and this is reflected locally. Commitment to data transformation is fundamental to embedding sustainable improvements in terms of seamless support for families, better information for practitioners, and targeting resources appropriately and efficiently. Developing data maturity is also a requirement of continued funding for the Supporting Families Programme.

Common challenges to this work have been identified, and include:

·         Difficulties in agreeing a definition of early help

·         Different areas interpreting and implementing early help in different ways

·         Case management systems not fit for purpose and too reliant on individuals

·         Complexity in evidencing outcomes accurately, meaningfully or consistently

·         Too much emphasis on this being a problem for local authorities to resolve, it needs a partnership approach

 

Local context

Locally, needs analysis indicate that for children in families facing multiple disadvantage, the outcomes gap in the city is growing. This overarching ‘A Fairer Brighton & Hove’ Framework seeks to bring together learning from the range of local initiatives to tackle disadvantage, with delivery through the proposed Family Hubs. This requires joining up data sources for improved data analysis and robust data governance. The findings of the Early Help review in the City (2020-2022) also state  that:

·         Rationalisation and further integration of information systems across the partnership would significantly improve the whole family approach

·         Improved data analysis will enhance strategic and operational decision making, help frontline practitioners better understand outcomes, improve service offer

·         Multiple systems are used across services and organisations and there are currently no mechanisms for data sharing and providing a single view across systems.

The Access to Data project within the City Council is seeking to identify a wide range of data sources for children, young people and families and use that to establish fuller key data sharing agreements and arrangements. This is aligned to what is needed for the Supporting Families outcomes framework. Some of the issues include:

·         Some of the indicators for the outcomes framework are complex and require multiple data sources to answer, with data being held in different locations and formats

·         It will take time and greater understanding to know if all data is usable, even if it is readily available

·         Data is not always available in reportable formats, therefore further manual work is needed to extract useful information, which is highly inefficient

·         Across Families, Children and Learning, the Council and our partners, data is stored and accessed in a variety of ways. This means that there is no one ‘data extraction’ solution that will work for all

 

In order to progress this work, an FCL Data Governance Board is being established, which will link with both the corporate BHCC Data Governance Board, Family Hubs Transformation Board and with partnership groups looking at data locally. This board will ensure that:

 

·         FCL is part of an organisation-wide approach to data and insight

·         Understanding local needs and landscape through data to ensure informed decisions re finance, operations, interventions

·         Develop and embed a data culture to improve use of data and digital resources

·         Reduce siloed working, inefficiencies and duplication in terms of reporting and case management systems

·         Robust data sharing to reduce risk to children and young people

·         Joined up approach to performance reporting

 

Subject to the challenges outlined above, work is underway to build a strong local data set matched against the Supporting Families outcomes framework. Below is a summary of the objectives and data we are looking to collect within that, and examples of the outcomes it aims to support.

 

In future updates of this report we intend to share more high level data to demonstrate the current breadth and range of who is at risk of disadvantage within the city.

 

The next phase of the Supporting Families programme has two key ambitions:

 

1.    To see vulnerable families thrive, building their resilience by providing effective, whole family support to help prevent escalation into statutory services.

2.    To drive system change locally and nationally, working with local authorities and their partners to create joined up local services, able to identify families in need, provide the right support at the right time, and track their outcomes in the long term.

 

 

This outcomes framework sets out the data requirements Local Authorities are asked to collect and report on as of October 2022. This is an ambitious piece of work given the complexity of our data systems and arrangements. However, this work will enable us to have a better and more comprehensive view on the breadth and depth of disadvantage in the city. It will also enable us to better understand the impact of our work with families and better understand the problems faced by families with multiple disadvantage risk factors.

 

The Supporting Families Programme 2022 - 2025 outcomes framework will be looking at:

 

Getting a good education

Improving and sustaining school attendance and improved engagement with education (e.g., pupils no longer on report, reduction/no detentions)

 

Good early years development 

Ensuring families are engaged with appropriate support that can be seen to be making a difference; capacity for positive, effective parenting increased and they are accessing and engaging with services and that children have the right support to make progress and that their needs are met

 

Improved Mental and Physical Health 

Mental health/wellbeing/physical health is improved, and family members are better equipped to manage this and the right support is in place

 

Promoting Recovery and Reducing Harm from Substance Use 

A reduction or abstinence from substance use and families better equipped to manage or to find alternative coping strategies, and understands risk / impact of substance use 

 

Improved Family Relationships 

Family members understand behaviours, develop coping mechanisms and better at self-managing. Family relationships improve. Support improves for young carers

 

Children Safe from Abuse and Exploitation 

Strategies developed with children and families to reduce harm such as abuse, neglect, missing episodes, exploitation.

 

 

 

Crime Prevention and Tackling Crime 

A reduction or absence of family members being involved in crime or anti-social behalf. Young people better supported to manage risks

 

Safe from Domestic Abuse 

Domestic abuse is reduced or eliminated with safety plans in place and appropriate support being given.  

 

Secure Housing 

Increase in families having sustained accommodation or more moves into settled housing. Reduction in young people at risk of homelessness.

 

Financial Stability 

More adult family members in work or making progress to work, families feel more able to manage finances including reduction in debt. Increase in young people in education, employment or training.

5

 Update on ‘Year 1 strategies’

 

 

Year 1 of the Fairer Brighton & Hove Framework will focus on the strategic areas of work covered below.  It is important to note that the list below is by no means a full look at the work supporting those at risk of disadvantage across the city. It is intended to provide a focussed and targeted list to work with in Year 1, to test this new Framework and provide learning before expanding into Year 2.  The intention is that this Framework will become more scalable in Years 2 and 3 and will link with a wider group of partners and stakeholders in the city. Year 1 is about setting out and developing the principles and testing the proposed mechanism for providing a collective oversight on the progress of these areas of work.   

 

 

The Strategy for Tackling Educational Disadvantage 

 

Groups have been formed to work on each strategy strand and are meeting regularly. Connections have been made with the universities, post-16's and other groups such as Uni-Connect, who are contributing to the development of the strategy.  We have a young person representative on the group who links to pupil voice. 

Recent work includes: 

  

·         A training programme has taken place in partnership with the Durrington Research School and the Education Endowment Foundation, which 13 schools have been involved in.  The impact has improved outcomes for disadvantaged pupils across all primary measures (secondary data is not available yet) of achievement (when compared with disadvantaged outcomes within the city/nationally). For example, in KS2 the percentage of pupils achieving the expected standard in reading, writing and maths is 1.4% higher than the national average for this group.  Following a success of this project a further 15 schools have been recruited, while the 13 have progressed onto a second phase with ongoing support. 

·         An extensive offer for both primary reading (including Every Child a reader) and maths interventions has been developed and delivered across the LA supporting accelerated progress in both subjects. Several new school-led reading pilot projects have taken place in the last year to support primary reading.  These opportunities are now being shared at Headteacher meetings to widen the impact. 

·         A transition programme from Year 6 to Year 7 has been developed to support disadvantaged pupils.   It includes working on approaches to teaching reading within secondary schools based on the successful intervention programmes already being delivered in the primary phase  

·         Working in partnership with the secondary school maths leads, a programme is being developed to support teachers to more effectively teach and plan for pupils working below the expected standard, through sharing best primary school practice. 

·         Assessment and planning tools have been developed to support disadvantaged pupils working below the programme of study. These have been based on the very successful Planning to Progress documents developed during the pandemic. They identified the key learning in each phase allowing teachers to accelerate the progress of disadvantaged pupils who are behind their peers. 

·         Audit tools are being further developed to support leaders at all levels (including governors and School Partnership Advisers) to carry out in depth analysis of provision for disadvantaged learners. 

·         Work is happening in partnership with the Secondary School Partnership to reduce exclusions across the city, learning from the zero-exclusion model being delivered at Patcham High School. 

·         The secondary school partnership (10 schools) now have a joint key performance indicator on disadvantage seeking to work together to improve outcomes 

 

Moving forward, we have planned Governor and Headteacher conferences using keynote speakers who are leading nationally in this field 

 

Starting Well chapter of the City’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy Vision: The health and wellbeing of children and young people in Brighton & Hove will be improved. Ø A focus on early years will maintain our good breastfeeding rates and improve the uptake of childhood immunisation. Ø Healthy lifestyles and resilience will be promoted, including in school and other education settings, to reduce the risk of experiencing health problems in later life. Ø Risks to good emotional health and wellbeing will be addressed, including parental substance misuse and domestic abuse, and mental health services will be easier to access. Ø High quality and joined-up services will consider the whole family and, where appropriate, services will intervene early to provide support to prevent problems escalating. Recent Delivery Plan updates include • Breastfeeding rates continue to be above the national average and the Health Visiting Service has initiated the process to become a UNICEF Baby Friendly accredited service • A 3-year action plan has been agreed under the Sussex wide Perinatal Equity and Equality Strategy, focusing on improving equality of access and experience of maternity services with a focus on marginalised parents and families. • Vaccination and immunisations rates for the city continue to be below the required 95% take up and a new Vaccination and Immunisations Improvement Plan identifies a range of actions in response. • Mothers smoking at delivery continues to be below the national average as does the number of Under 18 years conceptions in the city. • The latest Safe and Well at School Survey shows worsening trends at secondary school age around children and young people’s mental health, experience of harmful sexual behaviours and some risky behaviours. Thematic analysis of the results is informing partnership work around the needs of a range of pupils. • Self-harm presentations and admissions to the children’s hospital continue to rise for the Under 25’s, wait times for specialist mental health services continue to be very long and frontline services report high levels of need around children and young people’s mental health. The city’s all ages Mental Health Joint Strategic Needs Assessment will shortly present recommendations to strategic partners with a strong emphasis on the needs of children, young people, young adults and families. The Sussex wide eating disorder pathway is being refreshed to improve access to specialist treatment and improve early help. • The Foundations for our Future Improvement Plan for Brighton & Hove has actions to improve the delivery and effectiveness of mental health and wellbeing services for children and young people.

Best Start for Life The aim of the Early Years strategic action plan will be to support the transformation of early years services from pre-birth to five and facilitate high quality childcare throughout the Early Years and beyond. The intended outcomes are to improve the wellbeing of young children and reduce inequalities. Current update: • Brighton and Hove is developing a family hub model which will include launching it’s ‘Start for Life Offer’ in March 2024. • In developing the start for life offer Brighton and Hove will need to develop a 'Start for Life Strategy’ by March 2024 as part of its family hubs development which will replace the Early Years Strategy. • An Early Years strategic action plan will be developed to ensure the delivery of Early Years priorities in the interim period and to ensure we can fully understand the impact of Covid on Early Years Children and Early Years settings. • November 2022 CYPS committee is being asked to agree the Early Years Strategic action plan for the transition period in implementing the Brighton and Hove Start for Life Strategy in March 2024. • This plan will have four priority areas Ø To ensure sufficient appropriate support for Early Years children identified with SEND Ø To ensure clear and consistent assessments and pathways for Early Years children Ø To ensure there are sufficient early years childcare places in the city so that all children can take up their early years free entitlement and parents can work Ø To ensure early years provision is good quality and support outcomes for disadvantaged children with the aim of closing the gap between them and their peers

Antiracist Schools Strategy Vision: The anti-racist education strategy is an invitation for us to work together to make Brighton and Hove education settings a place where everyone can feel equal, safe and have a strong sense of identity and belonging. Lots of activities have taken place over the summer term, including: • Guidance and support shared with schools to undertake their own anti-racist education review and developing an action plan • Recruitment of a team of lead teacher secondments to support the anti-racist education strategy and PHSE curriculum development • Primary teachers book club – a facilitated 8-session book club for primary teachers • Racial literacy training continues to be offered to education workers in the city • Pupils of colour workshops have been running at two secondary schools with support for pupils of colour in secondary and FE settings provided by BMEYPP • Meeting at the successful Governors conference earlier this year, a group of Governors of colour are creating a network for all Governors of colour in the city to join for peer support, shared learning and development.

Antiracist Social Work Practice Project Project work continues within children’s social care teams around families that experience racism. Recent work has included: • An action plan has been developed with staff and this includes workstreams on the voice of children and families and practice with families. • Providing bespoke learning events and regular anti-racist practice discussions to support staff. • Employed a Lead Practitioner for Anti-Racist Practice. • All teams have been supported to complete Layla F Saad’s workbook, Me and White Supremacy, to help them consider how they support families from Black and racially minoritised communities. • Earlier this year we completed the recruitment of our cohort of newly-qualified social workers and, this year, over 30% of the successful candidates identify as from communities who experience racism • Also earlier this year we published our Workforce Race Equality Standards for Social Care Action Plan jointly with adult social care.

Early Help Transformation Programme Vision for a local Family Hub Network is to improve outcomes for vulnerable and disadvantaged families by providing integrated, accessible, seamless support to ensure that emerging needs are met at the earliest opportunity. Recent activity has included: • Recruited Family Hubs Programme Manager and further posts currently being filled • Delivery plan and governance structure for the programme has been agreed • Coproduction and consultation activities to design the hubs continue including with staff groups • Public consultation has been completed and will inform the next steps of the co-design

Special Educational Needs and Disability Strategy Vision is to enhance the outcomes and life chances of children and young people with SEND and adults with Learning Disabilities (LD) across the city. The LA and the NHS Sussex Commissioners are the leads for the strategy, however its success lies in the effectiveness of the partnership between all stakeholders, in particular our families. The strategy sets out our six co-produced key priorities: Ø Inclusion Ø Early Identification & Intervention Ø SEND Pathways Ø Achievement and Outcomes Ø Transitions and Preparing for the Future Ø Sufficiency of SEND Provision and Services These have been agreed by a partnership between the LA, Sussex Commissioners, families, schools, settings, other agencies and services in Health and Social Care, including Adult Services and the voluntary and community sector. Recent activity has included: • Establishing a 12-month plan for creating an Inclusion Charter for Brighton and Hove Schools has been agreed. The views of children and young people will become the starting point for this work. We have engaged a graphic facilitator to support this work and will be running groups in Autumn 2022. Parents and carers views will be sought in small working groups to add to the voices of our children and PaCC will be gathering the views of parent carers in various ways to ensure a broad range of experiences are included. • Brighton & Hove Inclusion Support Service (BHISS) have developed an online suite of elearning induction training for school staff. This compliments the extensive CPD training offer for schools by supporting SENCOs with increasing knowledge and skills in existing staff and in new staff who can join at various points in the year. BHISS are also including experts by experience in workforce development training for Early Years, schools colleges and LA children’s services staff, which includes emotion coaching, immersion training and promoting mental health first aid training. There are currently thoughts on how to extend some of this training to parents/carers by recording training events to make them more accessible. • A working group consisting of schools, professionals and PaCC Representatives are looking at improving timeliness of in-school triage for children with social, emotional and mental health difficulties to ensure right needs assessment is being identified. Group is producing good practice guidance, which would be available for all schools in the Autumn Term. • A Quality Assurance Framework has been produced, as well as a digital quality assurance of EHC Plans. A parent/carer questionnaire has been co-produced with PACC and Amaze and the survey results will be collated quarterly by Amaze. • Secondary schools are looking at a restorative practice model as a way of reducing exclusions and improving attendance. This is an exciting development and great to see all secondary schools working together.

Corporate Parenting Strategy The following are messages from members of the Children in Care Council to their Corporate Parents: The City’s Corporate Parenting Board has evolved in the last few years, with care leavers co-chairing the meetings and the move to online since the pandemic has enabled more people to attend. Meetings have a themed agenda e.g. housing and accommodation for Care Leavers, which has led to focussed discussions and actions being taken forward. Key areas of current work includes: • A review is underway of the care leavers housing offer aiming to address the need to prevent homelessness and to reduce demands • Addressing the mental health support needs of care leavers be accessing funding for increased access to therapeutic interventions. • Developing our Poverty Aware Practice in respect of Care leavers particularly in light of economic challenges ahead with rising costs of living , fuel poverty, electricity bills etc • Developing an app for Children in Care and Care Leavers to enable access to a range of information about services/ support available to them and will include our updated Local Offer to Care Leavers • The main focus of work around Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children is addressing the challenges of placement sufficiency which is both a local and national issue. Local work is also focussing on gaining access to English for Speakers of Other Languages courses, getting initial health assessments prioritised, and seeking increased legal support for asylum applications.

Complex Adolescent Strategy Vision is to set out how we plan to address and respond to the needs and challenges faced by complex adolescents within Brighton and Hove. It will also look at how we aim to reduce the harm caused by some of the behaviours. The strategy will incorporate the Youth Justice Strategy, produced in previous years. It widens the remit to better reflect the local arrangements and approach within Brighton and Hove. A current area of focus - to gain a better understanding of why children reoffend to respond appropriately There have been historically high re-offending rates in the B&H compared to national data and neighboring areas, which is associated with the contextual issues, such as child exploitation, high levels of drug use, organized crime & gang activity including county lines with the associated increase in violence and weapons offences. While the B&H YOS cohort is relatively small, it is made up of young people presenting complex and multiple needs, associated with the relatively high number of families in the area affected by the “toxic trio” of parental substance misuse, domestic abuse and mental health difficulties. The data shows gradual improvements in re-offending (binary) rates in the past 3-4 years, with the number of young people re-offending reducing, even in relation to a gradually reduced cohort since 2017. However, the small number of re-offenders have committed a high number of offences (frequency rate). Targeting these high risk and often extremely vulnerable cohort of young people remains a key priority for the service. It is recognized that the most prolific offenders are often hard to reach young people with complex needs and that managing and preventing re-offending requires a robust and long- term multi-agency response. As well as regular monitoring of the data, an in-depth analysis of re-offenders and non-re-offenders was presented to the Board to highlight local themes/ patterns around risk and around protective factors. The 2021 HMIP inspection report on B&H YOS commended work the service was doing to manage this complex and high- risk group.

 

6 A focus on….School Attendance

For each six monthly update report we will look at a themed area of work with children, young people and families and consider how this new lens and approach to tackling disadvantage can be applied. School Attendance – a collated look at national and local policies and strategies For school attendance, we know there are a number of current areas of policy and work which are highlighting the importance of school attendance. These include: • Education White Paper and related Schools Bill, SEND and Alternative Provision Green Paper, Children’s Commissioner recent report and the government guidance on attendance issued for September 22 • The city’s strategy to tackle educational disadvantage and the SEND strategy • Our Hidden Children strategy and approach and the development of Family Hubs • Local Voluntary and Community Sector work including school based youth work pilot Attendance at school is everyone’s business and how we can apply the Fairer Brighton & Hove Guiding Principles There is much to be done and we can apply the Fairer B&H guiding principles to help us manage, plan and deliver the required actions with partners. By applying the lens to this we have developed the following ways of working to apply to the attendance work: • Collaborate together with families at risk of disadvantage to solve the barriers they face  • Take a whole family approach • Ensure good community relations and foster a sense of belonging  • Use understanding and empathy • Genuine co-production in identifying the steps to address absence by working with stakeholders to agree the actions that the council and other partners need to take to bring improvement. • Recognise the strengths of those we are responding to • Be outcome focussed in our work • Foster trusted and supportive relationships

By applying the principles and considering new ways of working as set out above, here is the starting point of an action plan for the school attendance improvement: • There should be an ongoing focus and commitment by all on school attendance with an understanding of the barriers that some young people face and providing ways to support them • Raising the profile of school attendance as vital to supporting good outcomes for children • Communication, feedback and coproduction – decisions about attendance need to be made with children and families • Use real time data to figure out where children and young people are and what education they are receiving.   • Foster a culture that consistently works to achieve good attendance for all • Build trusted and supportive relationships with children and their families.   • Deliver as much early support in school as possible.   • Recognise that limiting attendance is not an intervention but the trigger to assess the support and interventions needed.   • Ensure interventions are focussed on outcomes. All stakeholders take ownership and contribute to the solutions  • Form cross-cutting partnerships to discuss individual children and their circumstances  • Co-produce the strategies to bring improvement and make sure all advice and guidance is accessible  • Introduce interventions that recognise the impact of the pandemic and its effect on young people.   • Develop a workforce strategy to ensure there are the staff available to deliver the support in the way it needs to be delivered.   • Develop that layer of support between the school and the LA   • Champion young carers and siblings of children with SEN  • Take action from September if pupils are not attending.   • The recognition of Push:Pull factors (pushing out of school/pulling out of school) and the C&YP’s ability to trust professionals are crucial.   • Form a guiding coalition   • Build constructive relationships, based on good values, with key stakeholders as this is the delivery chain for improvement   A more detailed coproduced action plan is being developed. We would like to explore applying this approach in other areas of work and future themes in this six-monthly report can do that. It is likely that Mental Health will future as a theme in a further report.  

Reflections, recommendations and next steps

 

Reflections:

It has been a complicated task to bring together a collated look at this work with families at risk of disadvantage. Whilst the data sharing work continues, this first update report is more of a step towards the position we hope to be in for future reports.  

 

However, the past six months collaboration on this Framework has resulted in:  

·         Strategy leads working together on considering the cumulative impact of both the risk of disadvantage and their work to mitigate it 

·         A reflection on and am example given on how the emerging guiding principles can be applied to ‘real life’ in practice

·         An understanding that we do not want to simply repeat data / updates that appear elsewhere, but to use this framework to enable a new insightful look at the experiences of families in the city.   

 

 

Recommendations:

·         Return to the communities that provided feedback earlier in 2022 and check the framework is aligned to their views and experiences

·         Continue to explore and expand new and different ways to hear from families at risk of disadvantage. Suggestions have included specific activities around working with Black young people involved in the Extended Adolescent Service; exploring opportunities via the Holiday Activities and Food Programme, especially for children and young people with SEND; working with the city’s Care Leavers Forum and Youth Council.

·         Fund engagement work with young people around school attendance to fully understand the barriers that young people and their families face in attending school, coproducing work to in order to support and address the barriers for attendance, especially for those most at risk of disadvantage. To include a focus on where attendance has become a concern post pandemic.

·         Ensure the feedback received from communities within this framework is shared with the Family Hubs design phase. 

·         Recommend that the digital offer in Family Hubs is wide and includes the cultural ‘what’s available’ elements of city-life to ensure greater equity of access to events and opportunities 

·         Families, Children and Learning to develop a coproduction strategy to enable all services to work to a best practice model and learn from previous work such as Home to School Transport  

·         Families, Children and Learning to meet with other directorate management teams within the council to raise awareness and explore the areas of work that should be covered by this framework during year two. 

·         Work with the University of Sussex and Public Health to further analyse and learn from the 2021 Safe and Well at School Survey

·         Explore mentoring opportunities for young people at risk of disadvantage

·         Make further connections between ‘A Fairer Brighton & Hove’ and anti-poverty work in the city especially within children’s social work

·         Expand and explore more data opportunities including working with Public Health and linking with existing and emerging data dashboards such as those used by the SEND Partnership Board and the Brighton & Hove Safeguarding Children Partnership

 

 

Next steps:

Actions will be progressed and a further update will be brought to the Family Hubs Transformation Board and Children, Young People and Skills Committee in May/June 2023. This will summarise findings from year one of the framework and look ahead to what will be covered in year two.  

 

The next report will also present a fuller range of data around disadvantage in the city and look more at the ways in which families may face multiple barriers and what we are doing to address that.  

 

The Framework will be published in an accessible format, available for all to review, comment on and contribute to its further development.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                     

 

 

 

 

 

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