8. Whole Family Wellbeing Progress Report June 2025 ECSPB 21 08 25
Renfrewshire Council · 21 August 2025
Back to Education and Children's Services Policy Board — 21 August 2025 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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Page 1 of 9 To: Education and Children’s Services Policy Board On: 21 August 2025 ___________________________________________________________________ Report by: Director of Children’s Services ___________________________________________________________________ Heading: Whole Family Wellbeing Progress Report ___________________________________________________________________ 1. Summary 1.1. Since 2022, Renfrewshire Children’s Services Partnership (RCSP) has received funding from the Scottish Government, as part of the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund (WFWF). This report outlines the progress that has been made across the local authority to date, including the impact of the family wellbeing service, the roll-out of a digital request for assistance system and increased collaboration and capacity building with third sector partners. The report discusses early impact on outcomes for children, young people and families. 1.2. Nationally, the Whole Family Wellbeing approach is an important element of Children’s Services Planning which is Scotland’s legislative approach to collaborative local strategic planning and delivery of services and support to improve outcomes for children, young people and families living in each area. The aim is to ensure a whole systems approach is in place across public and third sector partners to: promote wellbeing; shift resources to early intervention and, where possible, prevention; and to make best use of local assets, workforce and budgets across partners, with support to families at the core of this. 1.3. In November 2024, the Renfrewshire inspection report of services to protect children and young people at risk of harm was published. In it, inspectors made positive reference to the work of the partnership, indicating that “early help and prevention practices were improving the safety of children and young people. Dedicated staff were committed to working to address issues before they escalated”. They also stated that “ The partnership’s ‘Whole family wellbeing’ approach involving the collaborative effort of statutory, national, and local third sector partners …had significantly enhanced early help and support for the wellbeing of families. The approach allowed families to make direct requests for assistance, requiring only one application to access the full range of support services. This streamlined process ensured that families needed to " tell your story once."
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Page 2 of 9 1.4. On 24/02/2025 the Scottish government published its year 2 report on the impact of whole family wellbeing nationally. Renfrewshire’s use of the Fast Online Referral and Tracking (FORT) system as a platform to support improved data sharing and case management was referenced in this report, and in subsequent national briefings as an example of good practice. The recommendations for children’s services partnerships included the alignment of case management systems as well as increasing visibility and promotion of available supports for parents; and developing a collaborative culture for the provision of holistic family support ___________________________________________________________________ 2. Recommendations 2.1 Members of the Education and Children’s Services Policy Board are asked to note the very positive progress the family wellbeing service has made to improving outcomes for families in Renfrewshire. ___________________________________________________________________ 3. Background 3.1 Renfrewshire Children’s Services Partnership (RCSP) includes council, other public sector partners, and third sector organisations who deliver support to children, young people and families across the authority. RCSP received a proportion of the WFWF to build capacity for system-wide change and to scale up the delivery of family support services. Initially the Scottish Government offered a 4 year period of funding which was committed until 31/03/2026. During the financial year 2024-25 the Scottish Government announced that a further year of WFWF would be committed beyond the period of the current parliament, until 31/03/2027. This additional funding will further enable the RCSP to embed its strategy of early help and support to families to reduce the need for crisis intervention. 3.2 The family wellbeing service has been operating since January 2024, following the amalgamation of three separate teams working with families across Children’s Services. One of the key strengths of the service is that is has been aligned with the Renfrewshire staged intervention approach, ensuring that families get the right kind of help at the right time. This system consists of three tiers: • Tier 1 – universal prevention and early intervention services. These are delivered by the community team. • Tier 2 – tailored, targeted support. These services are delivered by the schools’ team. • Tier 3 – intensive support that either prevents or is a response to statutory interventions. These are delivered by specialist services. 3.3 One of the national principles of holistic whole family support is that families can reach in as opposed to being referred to for support. Therefore, a new request for assistance process has been introduced in Renfrewshire to ensure equity of access. To provide articulation with the GIRFEC staged intervention framework, and embed our request for assistance process, a framework for family wellbeing support (FFWS) was developed and implemented across the
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Page 3 of 9 family wellbeing service. Families or other agencies can now request for assistance online, and this is followed up by a member of the Family Wellbeing team who will meet and discuss the support they require. This information is then considered though our request for assistance process to identify whether the family require support under tier 1, 2, or 3. Regular locality referral meetings between the communities and schools family wellbeing leads ensured that an assessment of need was carried out before allocating support to a family. This collaboration meant that families needs were effectively met in creative and flexible ways including joint work across the teams and support to access other relevant provision where necessary. ___________________________________________________________________ 4 Implementation of the FORT System 4.1 In addition to the request for assistance process, a Fast Online Referral and Tracking (FORT) system has been introduced on a pilot basis to manage families currently accessing support within Renfrewshire. This system aims to improve accessibility for teams supporting families by holding all necessary information on each family and improving collaboration across teams as families may access support from a number of services. It also supports the evaluation of the WFWF, by holding information regarding the number of families taking up supports across services and data monitoring the impact of these. The Family Wellbeing team and the funded third sector organisations were all trained to use the system and received support throughout the pilot from the system developers. Advice Infrastructure. 4.2 The pilot of the FORT system was evaluated in March 2025. The results of the evaluation showed that use of this system was well embedded across the community family wellbeing teams and funded Third Sector Organisations TSOs, providing an effective platform for agencies to request assistance from another source and share information about families they were working with, The system also provides a range of helpful management information. It was agreed that following the pilot, we would undertake a procurement exercise to secure a system to enable the approach to be rolled out to the other teams in the family wellbeing service, the Schools team and the Interrupted learners team. It was also agreed that the system would be implemented across the Educational Psychology Service and the Community Learning and Development service. ___________________________________________________________________ 5 Community Family Wellbeing Team Data 5.1. FORT data shows that from July 2024 – June 2025 the community family wellbeing team including funded third sector partners have worked with 1030 building on a baseline of 86 families from June 2024 families across Renfrewshire and provided early intervention and support. Data shows that the key reasons that families were either referred to or sought help themselves from the community family wellbeing team were due to issues with supporting their child’s behaviour, or issues with the mental health of either the child/young person or the parent.
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Page 4 of 9 5.2. The table below shows that uptake of support from families peaked in December 2024. This was following the 4 well attended Family Launches. 5.3. From FORT data, we can see the wide range of outcomes that came from the support the families received. This is illustrated below. We can see from this data that the biggest impact to families is being made in relation to the improved confidence and social skills of children and the improvement in parenting, family functioning and reduction of child’s distressed behaviour. 5.4. The table below shows the Interventions offered to families and young people following assessment. For some families, initial support on making the RfA was sufficient and they did not require further intervention
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Page 5 of 9 ___________________________________________________________________ 6. Promotion and Development of the Family Wellbeing Service 6.1. The service was widely promoted to key stakeholders through attendance at a wide range of single and multi-agency meetings; via Ren10 website; Council website; social media and headteacher newsletters. This was effective and partners have reported that the family wellbeing service has been responsive to RfAs and that the input that families have received has made a difference. Our Requests for Assistance have increased throughout the year and hit a peak in December 2024 just after the Family Wellbeing launches and engagement events. 6.2. Our partnership with 15 third sector organisations funded through the WFWF developed through a series of joint training events. As well as the successful 3 TSO forum meetings where good practice was shared and networking undertaken, we had a whole service development day in March 2025 where family wellbeing teams, funded third sector organisations and other partners including parents came together to review the work of the service over the previous year and discuss priorities going forward. In addition, third sector partners have attended NVR training, LIAM training and EPEC training, building capacity to deliver these evidence based interventions to more parents in future. ___________________________________________________________________ 7. Successes and Achievements 7.1. Some of the key successes and achievements from the work of the Family Wellbeing Service are listed below. Case studies of good practice are being drawn up for the following: - EPEC development; - NVR dad’s group; - Family Wellbeing launches; and - ASN partnership group 7.2. These will be shared nationally as part of the Improvement Service Learning into action network.
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Page 6 of 9 • Family Wellbeing service now organises the central referral list for the delivery of NVR to parents which has cut the central waiting list in half and is proving NVR support to 100 parents per term • First very successful NVR dad’s group • 4 highly successful family wellbeing community engagement events which attracted 559 parents/carers and children • The development of the ASN partnership group which now has an active cohort of parent members that drive forward the direction of the partnership work to improve services outwith school for families of children of ASN • Recruiting to a new post of ASN Family Wellbeing co-ordinator which will bring much-needed continuity and leadership to the ongoing development and delivery of the ASN playscheme. The appointment represents a key milestone in our improvement journey, strengthening our capacity to provide high-quality, inclusive support for children with additional support needs and their families. • Increased number of EPEC groups; introduction of Being a Parent autism group; and first parent group leader to run groups • All family wellbeing schools staff and interrupted learners staff undertook EBSA training which will enable them to better advise schools and support families where there are attendance issues ___________________________________________________________________ 8. Development of the Family Wellbeing Scale 8.1. An evaluation of the Family Wellbeing scale was carried out by the Children’s services data and evaluation officer. The FWS has been rolled out across the Family Wellbeing Service in Renfrewshire Council for a year or so. Crucially, the scale is not just used by Council services, but also has seen roll out amongst Third Sector Organisations which are funded by the council, though the roll out amongst these organisations remains varied in terms of implementation. In Renfrewshire, it is typically introduced around the second or third week of engagement, or once a basic relationship has been established and staff feel it is appropriate. Staff are advised not to present the FWS as a requirement but as a tool that may inform the type of support offered. It is made clear that participation is voluntary, and responses are not shared outside of the Family Wellbeing Service. 8.2. A key benefit of the tool is that for individual families and practitioners it allows a focus of the situation from a families perspective, and allows a practitioner to have meaningful conversations which can be used to target interventions and provide support. It also allows for the effectiveness of interventions to be evidenced across the scale. A second benefit is that interventions can be evaluated and evidenced across the service as a whole, using a consistent approach across the service. 8.3. As demonstrated below, the data across the service can be seen in Table One below and demonstrates the insight can be derived from it. Pre Avg Post Difference
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Page 7 of 9 Avg Family bonding 9 9.58 0.58 Togetherness 7.97 8.89 0.93 Respect 3.6 4 0.4 Openness 7.4 8.26 0.86 Communication 7.15 8.05 0.9 Affection 8.35 8.79 0.44 Overall 43.48 47.58 4.1 Table One: Family Wellbeing Scale year-on-year data 8.4. The evaluation found that there were clear benefits to using the family wellbeing scale and that its use should be continued across the family wellbeing servie. As part of this, there is a need to conduct a full training needs analysis of the tool, which could be conducted by the Data and Evaluation Officer. Part of this should be exploration of whether the tool needs to be deliver in ‘research-type’ manner (a professional sitting with a pen or laptop asking for scores) or if there better ways for more ‘informal’ implementation. This analysis should also focus on the intersection with relational practice. __________________________________________________________________ 9. Developments for 2025-26 9.1. The key development actions for the Family Wellbeing Service during 2025- 26 will be included in the Education Improvement plan for 2025-26 and are as follows: • Develop the NVR approach across communities by planning an yearly calendar of NVR groups that will be delivered by family wellbeing staff ( including third sector) on a locality basis, ensuring that waiting times for parents to access an NVR group is kept to a minimum. • Promote the good practice of the Family Wellbeing Service through the development of a video, case studies and newsletters which will be widely shared with local and national partners. • Increase the voice of families in service development through a programme of self evaluation family friendly events • Increase the number of EPEC groups and number of parent group leaders through partnership with funded third sector organisations • As part of a wider review of the Easter and Summer ASN playscheme consideration will be given to the introduction of a Pay to Play option for parents, to increase respite opportunities for families of children with complex needs • Implement the use of the FORT (Fast Online Referral and Tracking) system with the interrupted learners team and the family wellbeing schools team, and provide guidance for whole service data reporting • Following the review of the Family Wellbeing scale, through partnership with the data officer, implement improvements to its use across the community wellbeing team and third sector partners as part of a wider approach to improve impact evaluation across the funded third sector organisations
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Page 8 of 9 • Develop stronger links with housing and homeless services to improve family support _________________________________________________________________ Implications of this report 1. Financial – no financial implications 2. HR & Organisational Development – no implications 3. Community/Council Planning Our Renfrewshire is thriving - Ensuring the best support for all children and young people Our Renfrewshire is well - Early intervention will lead to healthier outcomes for children and young people, families and communities. Our Renfrewshire is safe - Local services/establishments will support children, young people and members of the community. Building strong, safe and resilient communities - The quality of community life is enhanced by supporting children and young people. Tackling inequality, ensuring opportunities for all - Effective governance arrangements ensure that the organisations can deliver effective and equitable support for children and young people Creating a sustainable Renfrewshire for all to enjoy - Effective support arrangements will contribute to a quality education for children and young people 4. Legal – no implications 5. Property/Assets – no implications 6. Information Technology – no implications Equality & Human Rights – The Recommendations contained within this report have been assessed in relation to their impact on equalities and human rights. No negative impacts on equality groups or potential for infringement of individuals’ human rights have been identified arising from the recommendations contained in the report. If required following implementation, the actual impact of the recommendations and the mitigating actions will be reviewed and monitored, and the results of the assessment will be published on the Council’s website. 7. Health & Safety – no implications 8. Procurement – no implications
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Page 9 of 9 9. Risk – no implications 10. Privacy Impact – no implications 11. Climate Risk – no implications 12. Children’s Rights – While not directly mentioned in the report reference is made to the UNCRC and the additional responsibilities it places on councils. 13. Cosla Policy Position – no implications List of Background Papers Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) The Promise Scotland United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Support for Learning: All our Children and all their Potential ___________________________________________________________________ Children’s Services EH 8 August 2025 Author: Emma Henry, Head of Education, emma.henry@renfrewshire.gov.uk