Luton Borough Council

10/04/2024 - Luton chosen to test government’s social care transformation

Luton Council has been selected to deliver the government’s Families First for Children Pathfinder programme.

The council is one of seven new areas in the second wave to be chosen today (10 April) with the aim of protecting vulnerable children from harm and improving services to help more children stay with their families in safe and loving homes.

Our safeguarding partners, Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes Integrated Care Board and Bedfordshire Police, will play an integral part in the pathfinder programme which is due to start in the summer. Building on our existing early intervention services, the programme will offer strengthened targeted early help and support to those families with multiple needs such as experiencing domestic abuse, addiction, or poor mental health, to help prevent issues escalating in order to reduce the risk of harm to children.

The Families First programme will transform how we will support families and children by:

creating multi-disciplinary family help teams, to make sure families with multiple needs can access all the support they need earlier and in one place
making greater use of extended family members, with them being the first port of call if extra support is required, and practical and financial support provided to them if needed
establishing dedicated multi-agency child protection teams
creating stronger and clearer multi-agency safeguarding processes, including an increased role for education and improved information sharing

Dheeraj Chibber, Corporate Director for Children, Families and Education, said: “We are delighted that Luton has been selected to take part in the Families First for Children Pathfinder. It will help us to achieve our mission to improve children’s lives through supporting and strengthening relationships, to enable families to thrive and stay together, and provide safe, nurturing environments to ensure that children are protected from harm and reach their full potential.

“Children are at the heart of everything we do in Luton, and we are very proud of the tremendous work that is already taking place together with our partners, including the development of our Family Hubs and working towards making Luton a child-friendly town where our children and young people can grow up feeling happy, healthy and secure.”

The Families First for Children Pathfinder programme is part of the government’s children’s social care reform strategy, Stable Homes, Built on Love, to revamp the current system to focus more on early intervention and best practice child protection where that is required.

For more information, visit Families first for children (FFC) pathfinder programme and family networks pilot (FNP) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)