Minister hails decline of troublesome families (From The Northern Echo)

Minister hails decline of troublesome families

8:34am Saturday 12th July 2008 in

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A CRACKDOWN on the region's "families from hell"

- which includes forcing some to live with social workers - is succeeding, the Government has claimed.

Beverley Hughes, the children's minister, hailed the early results from setting up 53 Family Intervention Projects (Fips) across the country, six of which are in the North-East.

Projects were launched in Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Sunderland and South Tyneside, targeting families at risk of losing their home.

Contracts will be drawn up with about 1,500 troublesome families a year in those six areas, offering support such as basic child care, drug counselling and domestic violence advice.

In some areas, families are moved into an adapted unit under 24-hour supervision.

Elsewhere, they are only given new tenancies if they agree to up to 20 hours a week help from social workers.

The families have little option but to agree - because they will be evicted from their homes, or have their children taken into care, if they refuse.

Now the first evaluation of the projects, which build on pioneering work by the charity NCH, has found:

● A fall in anti-social behaviour in 61 per cent of families.

● A fall in the proportion of families punished with sanctions, from 45 per cent to 23 per cent.

● A fall in the number of five to 15-year-old children behaving badly at school, from 37 per cent to 21 per cent.

● A two-thirds fall in the proportion of families with domestic violence problems.

Ms Hughes said: "These early results cannot be ignored.

The reduced levels of anti-social behaviour and improved parenting for families involved in a Family Intervention Project are substantial.

Most families don't choose to become anti-social.

They do so because of underlying problems they do not know how to deal with.

"This research shows that Fips are turning things around for some of the most disadvantaged families in our society."

The research was based on the results of the first 90 families to complete the projects, part of Tony Blair's Respect Action Plan in January 2006.

It costs about £15,000 a year to house a family in a residential unit, with the Government paying a third of that sum and the local authority the remainder.