An ecumenical Christian charity that works with local authorities across the UK to support vulnerable children and struggling families, could potentially prevent 15 per cent of children from going into the care system each year, according to new research.
Safe Families for Children, set up four years ago by Durham-based philanthropist Peter Vardy with a £2m grant from the Department for Education (DfE), currently liaises with 31 local authorities. It has, according to chief executive Keith Danby, the “audacious aim” of working with all UK councils within six years.
Dartington Social Research evaluated the charity’s services from January 2015 to March 2016 for the DfE. Its report described Safe Families as “one of the most adventurous start-ups in children’s services for some time” with “the potential to support several thousand of England’s neediest children; to greatly reduce the numbers of children in care, and to demonstrably forge a new relationship between public systems and civic society.” With the support of the charity’s volunteers, around two thirds of 708 children on the “edge of care” in the 20 local authorities evaluated were kept with their families rather than being fostered or taken into residential care.
More than 3,200 volunteers, mainly recruited from churches, offer support to families who are struggling with issues such as isolation, unemployment and depression, intervening before the point when their children are taken into care or fostered. Mr Danby said churches are an obvious place to recruit: it is “a community-based solution to a community-based problem”. Fr Jeffrey Dodds, of English Martyrs and St Peter and St Paul, Stockton-on-Tees, praised the work of Safe Families. “There are huge pressures on families,” he said. They “might have to move away from their own [wider] families not out of choice but to find work,” and then find themselves isolated.
Volunteers help in three ways: as a host family taking in children for a short period so their parents can get some respite; as a “friend” offering moral or practical help; or as a “family coach”, liaising between the parents and other agencies. They receive 12-18 weeks training and checks, similar to those foster carers undergo.
Mr Danby said: “Early intervention is very effective in stabilising struggling families. Giving support early before family pressures get out of control is crucial.”
Leanne, a single mother from Lincoln with two young boys, one with Attention Deficit/ Hyper-activity disorder, was struggling to cope until she learnt about Safe Families. “I hated living”, she admitted. Her support worker told her about the charity and she agreed to see a volunteer friend. Together they developed goals, including getting out of the house and cooking with her three-year-old. “I was so close to putting my kids into care because I didn’t think I could parent them,” she said. “I look at how far I’ve come and I am doing it.”
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