Purpose

As part of the ongoing
development of Children’s Services the Council commenced
implementation of a Family Safeguarding Model of practice during
2022.   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 is 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.
 
In line with nationally
recognised best practice the partner service providers that
contribute to delivery are those providers already working with the
Council. To reflect this approach, in September 2022 the Director
of Children, Young People and Learning approved the award of
contracts for the provision of specialist staff to partner
providers Change, Grow, Live – to deliver alcohol and drug
use support and the Probation Service to provide domestic abuse
perpetrator support - (decision
OKD24 (22/23) refers).
 
The focus of this report is to
confirm the arrangements for the remaining element of the
wrap-around support- emotional wellbeing and health
partnership.

Decision

The Director of Children, Young People and
Learning has approved the award of contract for the provision of
mental health support workers to Sussex Community Foundation Trust.
The contract is to commence in July 2023 for an initial period
until 31st March 2026. There is an option to extend the Contract by
up to 1 year until 31st March 2027 should the delivery and
performance of the providers be satisfactory and subject to
funding.