Decision details

As part of the redesign of Children’s Services the Council is implementing a Family Safeguarding Model of practice.   The model requires specialist staff to deliver services to support Adults in families open to Children’s Social Care, with the aim of addressing the behaviours which impact on the child(ren) and create the risks which if not addressed could lead to the child(ren) coming into the care of the local authority.

Whilst the Council and Health provides some of these specialist services, the Family Safeguarding model is an integrated approach with co-located teams made up of all the services required to provide an effective intervention to the family.  Therefore, it will be necessary to work with partner service providers to contribute to delivering elements of the wrap-around support for families, particularly those facing issues with mental health, domestic abuse and alcohol and drug use.

The partner service providers will be those already delivering mental health support (Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust and Sussex Community Foundation Trust), alcohol and drug use support (Change, Grow, Live), and domestic abuse perpetrator support (the Probation Service), in line with nationally recognised best practice.

The focus of this report is to confirm the arrangements for the delivery of two of these elements – alcohol and drug use support and domestic abuse perpetrator support.

(1) The Director of Children, Young People and Learning has approved the award of contracts for the provision of specialist staff to:

•            Change, Grow, Live – for Alcohol and Drug Use support workers

•            The Probation Service – for Domestic Violence Perpetrator support workers

Both contracts are to commence on 1st September 2022 for an initial period until 31st March 2025. There is an option to extend the Contracts by up to 2 years until 31st March 2027 should the delivery and performance of the providers be satisfactory and subject to funding. 

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