Family Safeguarding Plus (Mental Health Services)

The Family Safeguarding Plus Model (FSPM) is designed to improve the main statutory children's social workservices from the assessment of vulnerable children through to children that are the subject of children in needor child protection plan and those children who first come into care. Family Safeguarding was developed by Hertfordshire County Council in 2015, where it has delivered a radicalimpact in improving outcomes for children and their families whilst also significantly reducing demands andcosts for the county.

The model has been independently evaluated as being very effective, complimented byOfsted, and is being replicated by at least 12 other English local authorities. Key to its success is the initialintensive support provided to both children and the adults in their families.

FSPM will implement changes to the Children and Families Assessment Teams (CAFAT) and statutoryFamily Solutions Services (FSS) teams within the Children, Education and Families Directorate. FSP will notsignificantly change the current early help and targeted support services within CEF but it will consider theinterdependencies with these services and others such as the Looked After Children/Leaving Care teams andthe Children with Disabilities service.

Business Need These changes are required to address the significant rise in service demand for statutory children's socialwork services. The National Audit Office report published in January 2019 outlined the national picture as oneof increasing demand over the last five years.

The Oxfordshire position is like the national one where we haveseen an increase in referrals and interventions. The NAO report points to the characteristics of domestic abuse,parental mental health and drug/alcohol abuse as the key drivers of demand.

A similar pattern has been seen inOxfordshire and it is acknowledged that, although the current service model is good at managing the demand itdoes not address the root causes. The FSPM is predicated on multi-disciplinary joint children's and adult teams.

The model will therefore beimplemented by building on the skills mix of current Children's Social Work teams by adding adult mentalhealth expertise, domestic abuse specialist, and substance misuse workers. In addition to this the offer willbe enhanced by co-locating the teams with targeted Early Help teams and by providing dedicated workingarrangements with other key services (Housing Support and Leisure and Youth Services) through ourpartnership with Cherwell District Council This tender is for the Mental Health Services required to support this model