Delivering the Families First Programme in Telford & Wrekin
Introduction
The Families First Partnership (FFP) Programme is a UK government guidance aimed at reforming children’s social care by creating a more joined-up, family-focused system of support.
The FFP Programme helps local safeguarding partners (like social care, health, and police) work together to deliver early, targeted support to families through:
- Family Help services
- Multi-agency child protection
- Family Group Decision Making.
Its goal is to ensure families get the right help at the right time, keeping children safe and improving long-term outcomes.
National reviews have driven a commitment to reform, with Families First acting as the delivery programme to embed these changes locally. It aims to create a more responsive, relational, and preventative system—one that reflects the values of Telford & Wrekin’s Family First Approach.
The Government has published guidance about how the Families First Programme should be taken forward by Local Authorities including some minimum expectations.
Key Expectations
We are expected to:
1. Establish a single multi-disciplinary Family Help service
Required:
- Establish multi-disciplinary Family Help teams, merging family support workers and social workers.
- Introduce the new multi-agency Family Help Lead Practitioner (FHLP) role and publish a shared practice framework.
- Publish a refreshed threshold document.
Recommended:
- Introduce a single assessment and workflow.
- Co-locate professionals from different services (e.g., health, education, youth services) to provide holistic support.
- Extend proportionate access to case management systems for all partners working with families, particularly those who will take the lead practitioner role
2. Establish new Multi Agency Child Protection Team(s) (MACPT’s)
Required:
- Create the new Lead Child Protection Practitioner (LCPP) role.
- MACPT’s include Police, Health, Education professionals.
- Provide information, advice and support to parents and carers in child protection.
Recommended:
- Use shared decision-making tools and joint supervision to improve consistency.
- Co-locate MACPTs where possible to enhance collaboration.
- Develop local protocols for escalation and de-escalation between Family Help and MACPT.
3. Embed Family Led Decision-Making across the system
Required:
- Offer Family Led Decision Making as a standard approach before statutory intervention.
Recommended:
- Train practitioners in restorative and relational approaches to facilitate FLDM.
- Develop local FLDM coordinators or facilitators to ensure consistency and quality.
- Use FLDM to support kinship care planning and reduce the need for care proceedings.
4. Strengthen the role of Education in Local Multi-agency Safeguarding Arrangements
Required:
- Safeguarding partners to ensure that education and child care settings are relevant agencies by default, ensuring their views are represented at strategic and operational levels in safeguarding arrangements.
N.B: Additional expectation from Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill may include: to make provision to use the Single Unique Identifier.
Telford & Wrekin’s One Approach to Families First Programme
To support the successful delivery of the Families First Partnership (FFP) Programme, we have established a delivery structure:
- A dedicated Project Team comprising leads for data, programme management, practice lead, and finance. This team is responsible for overseeing the coordination, monitoring, and operational delivery of the programme.
- A Multi-Agency Strategic Board, bringing together leads and key partners from each of the four workstreams.
- Workstream groups will focus on the specific strands.
- A project plan is monitored by the project group with oversight from the Strategic Board, and governance groups.
- A tiered approach to codesign with families including a co-production group, utilising existing groups and voice forums and seeking wider and under represented voice through a range of engagement methods such as surveys and 1-1 conversations.
This structure supports clear accountability, cross-agency collaboration, and a focused approach to delivering meaningful and sustainable change for children and families.
The guidance is clear that 2025-2026 should be focused on transformation and developing local plans. The Department for Education (DfE) have emphasised that there is flexibility in terms of how and when local authorities implement the guidance, and that they are not expecting a one size fits all model to be implemented on a certain date.
Over the next six months the project team will be working closely with professionals, partner agencies and families to codesign our future offer through a range of engagement events with a regular updates to keep everyone informed of progress.
As part of our ongoing work within the Families First Partnership Programme, we are focusing on several key priorities to ensure successful implementation and long-term impact within Telford & Wrekin. We are identifying recruitment needs early, recognising that getting the right staff in place can be a lengthy process. We’re also working to secure strong multi-agency and elected member support by actively engaging with our partners. Dedicated project management is in place to drive progress, and we’re involving the third sector as a vital resource in delivering support. Staff engagement is a priority; we’re committed to open dialogue, reassurance, and clear communication throughout the change process. Through events, workshops, briefings, and co-production, we’re ensuring that staff and partners are informed and involved. Above all, we’re developing a clear, structured plan; while making sure we retain and build on what already works well.