Newcastle City Council’s Family Insights Programme

Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme Evaluation Report 31

In 2014, Newcastle City Council (NCC) successfully bid for funding from the Department for Education’s (DfE) Children’s Social Services Innovation Programme to develop Family Insights – a whole system change of children’s social work in Newcastle. From 2015, Family Insights intended to offer families more tailored and evidence-based support to better meet their needs. Developed by NCC, building upon work undertaken in partnership with a strategic consultancy (Social Finance), Family Insights is a major transformation of the way in which social care is organised and delivered in Newcastle.
Ultimately, Family Insights aims to support Social Workers to become agents of change, improving their capacity to support children and families, through:

  • introducing needs-based segmented social work units that support Social Workers to specialise in responding to specific types of presenting need, and in efficiently accessing direct intervention and specialist support
  • strengthening analytics by improving the collection and analysis of data on children and families, helping to provide social care services with access to more of a nuanced and holistic picture of needs, support and outcomes
  • a commitment to teaching and learning, by strengthening the skills of current and future Social Workers, and creating a culture of openness and innovation


DfE commissioned Kantar Public (formerly TNS BMRB) to carry out an independent evaluation of the implementation and impact of Family Insights, between June 2015 and October 2016.

Key findings
Since the launch of the innovation in May 2015, Newcastle has made significant progress in establishing the necessary infrastructure, systems and processes needed to implement Family Insights. It is a whole-scale change, involving a complete re-design of the way in which families are served. As such, the change is still bedding in and it is too early to assess whether Family Insights will lead to the desired outcomes, which include reduced demand at the most intensive tier of social care, reductions in re-referrals, and reductions in children’s social care costs. Although there is currently limited evidence of outcomes for children and families, the evaluation highlights some positive findings about the implementation of Family Insights and lessons about its influence on social work practice.

Key findings are: 

  • in Family Insights, 12% of cases were de-escalated, three-quarters of which (75%) moved from a Child Protection (CP) plan to a Complex Child In Need (CIN) plan. This compared to 21% of cases under the preceding model of social care (again the majority moved from a CP to a CIN plan). The remainder of the de-escalations, under both models of delivery, were from Looked After Children (LAC) to a CIN plan
     
  • twenty-two per cent of Family Insights cases had closed between June 2015 and October 2016, compared to 41% of cases in the baseline. The majority of cases which had closed had most recently been on a CIN plan, and the most common status of closures was No Further Action (NFA)
     
  • fewer cases have experienced a re-referral under the Family Insights model, compared to cases in the baseline (2% compared to 4%). However, it is too early to assess whether this is an attributable or sustainable outcome
     
  • in Family Insights, 50% of Looked After Children (n 87) were returned to their families, compared to 25% under the preceding model. Although this is based on only 87 cases in Family Insights, it suggests that this long-term outcome is better under the Family Insights model
     
  • one outcome Family Insights sought to achieve was cost savings. The financial viability of the programme was confirmed as sound before fast tracking the rollout of Family Insights across social care in Summer 2016. More time is needed to determine the cost savings of the programme once it has bedded in
     
  • there is evidence of increased systemic practice by Social Workers, supported by training, joint working and supervision. There is promising evidence that this is resulting in increased satisfaction from families and reductions in complaints
     
  • however, mobile working, and changes to assessment and the case management system, had limited impact on reducing administrative burdens, and were seen as potential barriers to systemic practice. There is more evidence of impact where reduced caseloads for practitioners were in place
     
  • needs-based segmented social work units have been successfully implemented, and services have been designed around the needs of children and families: the case referral process has been strengthened and staff are confident children and families are being supported by the relevant unit; new Consultant Social Worker and Unit Coordinator roles are established and staff are in post; group supervision is taking place
     
  • while implementation has been successful and, theoretically, Social Workers should develop specialist expertise in supporting children and families in their units (improving the effectiveness of practice), there is currently limited evidence that segmentation per se will improve outcomes for the families supported. Furthermore, there is an identified risk that practitioners experience burnout or compassion fatigue due to consistently working with families facing similar challenges
     
  • staffing and mechanisms for collecting and communicating insight on best practice have been established and are bedding in. Data was increasingly seen as a tool and an asset among staff, encouraging curiosity – a key aim of Family Insights – and there is the potential for data to directly support segmentation and systemic practice, though it remains too early in the implementation of Family Insights for this to have been evidenced consistently
     
  • a culture of learning is developing in NCC and is closely connected to the other elements of Family Insights, particularly in relation to systemic practice and using analytics to inform practice. This was the most nebulous element of Family Insights, altering in scope over the course of the evaluation. While there is evidence that the new approach directly supports a culture of learning, the original ambition was to influence the instruction of new Social Workers, an ambition that is now being realised – through the development of a regional teaching partnership – but which is still very much in its infancy
     
  • the fast pace of change in implementing Family Insights, coupled with a lack of dedicated communications support, led to challenges in engaging staff in the implementation process. An ‘us versus them’ (Practitioner, Wave 1) culture was fuelled by perceptions that those involved in the early roll-out of Family Insights were more privileged than wider children’s social care services, and caused confusion among partners about the changes implemented. A longer lead-in, with a clearer communications and engagement strategy, may have reduced the time taken to initiate and embed activities.