Families and senior leaders reported greater continuity of support through the embedding of the family help lead practitioner role, finds latest evaluation of children’s social care reform pathfinder.
Families say they are more listened to and supported due to having greater practitioner continuity in areas that were early adopters of the government’s children’s social care reforms, a report has said.
This was as a result of the embedding of the family help lead practitioner role (FHLP), as a single point of contact, and co-ordinator of multidisciplinary support, for families under targeted early help and children’s social care, found an evaluation for the Department for Education (DfE).
Senior leaders also reported that there were stronger relationships between practitioners across agencies as a result of the reforms. However, the report found there was variation in the implementation of multi-agency child protection teams (MACPTs) and lead child protection practitioners (LCPPs).
Children’s social care reform agenda
The findings came in the latest evaluation report on the families first for children (FFC) pathfinder, a 2023-25 Department for Education (DfE) programme to test three key reforms:
- Creating multidisciplinary family help services, bringing together targeted early help and child in need provision, to provide families with multiple and/or complex needs with earlier, less stigmatising support in order to enable children to stay safely with them where possible. Key to the model is families having consistency of practitioner – the FHLP – across different tiers of intervention
- Setting up MACPTs, including health, education and police practitioners, along with LCPPs, who should be expert social workers, to strengthen the response to safeguarding concerns.
- Making greater use of family networks in decision making about children, through so-called family group decision making (FGDM) meetings, and providing them with practical and financial support to prevent children having to go into care.
These changes are now being rolled nationally, through the so-called Families First Partnership reforms, with a target implementation date of March 2027, after being tested in the 10 pathfinder areas.
About the evaluation
The DfE-commissioned evaluation report, by research body Verian and charity the National Children’s Bureau (NCB), was mainly based on a survey of FFC leads, and interviews with 19 senior leaders and 14 families across five of the 10 pathfinder areas, in March 2026.
It also drew on engagement sessions with sector bodies – such as the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, College of Policing, Local Government Association, NHS England and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner – carried out in the same month.
The report was designed to examine how the pathfinder was being implemented and experienced in practice, and follows a similar study published last summer.
The authors stressed that, due to the qualitative nature of the research and the relatively small sample, their findings should be “interpreted as indicative of emerging patterns rather than representative of all pathfinder areas”.
Families ‘more supported and listened to’
The report said that, compared to the previous phase of research, senior leaders and families alike reported more positive experiences from children’s services in pathfinder areas.
Leaders said there were signs of earlier and more consistent engagement with families, more frequent and timely multi-agency discussions, greater clarity and confidence among practitioners and earlier use of family networks, through FGDMs.
Families reported “feeling more listened to, more involved in decision-making, and more supported”, with some saying that practitioners appeared to be communicating with one another about their support and to have a shared understanding of their needs.
They said there was a stronger sense that support was co-ordinated over time, with less repetition and fewer instances of families feeling they were starting again with new professionals.
The report found that these benefits were driven by two factors:
- Stronger and more sustained relationships between practitioners across agencies, driven by more routine multi-agency working.
- Greater practitioner continuity, particularly through the FHLP role, supporting relationship building and engagement with families.
Family help lead practitioner role being embedded
Senior leads said the FHLP role was now embedded within local authorities, with greater clarity about its purposes, to co-ordinate support, provide practitioner continuity and act as a single point of contact for the family.
This was reflected in feedback from families, several of whom “described the benefits of having a main point of contact who understood their situation, communicated clearly, and helped co-ordinate broader support”, added the report.
Though government policy allows for FHLPs to come from partner agencies, researchers found they were largely employed by councils, which interviewees attributed to other bodies not having the capacity to take on this responsibility.
As also permitted by DfE policy, FHLPs were a mixture of social workers and alternatively qualified practitioners, with the latter increasingly working with families with more complex needs, the report found.
The authors highlighted concerns about alternatively qualified practitioners carrying out similar roles to social workers for less pay. In addition, some interviewees were unclear about how Ofsted would treat the use of non-social work staff as lead practitioners in their inspections, which was seen as a barrier to implementation, particularly for councils seeking to improve their rating.
Benefits for families ‘not universal or automatic’
Senior leaders also stressed that benefits for families were not “universal or automatic”.
Those experiencing acute stress, socio-economic pressures or safeguarding concerns could still find engaging with services challenging, the authors found.
Engagement was also shaped by workforce capacity, wider system pressures and the ability of teams to consistently implement new ways of working, said the report.
Variability in implementation of child protection teams
Compared with the FHLP role, there was more variation between areas in the implementation of MACPTs and LCPPs.
In some pathfinder areas, MACPTs were more embedded and there was evidence they were strengthening child protection decision making, as intended by the reforms. In these places, practitioners had improved access to information from partners, joint discussions of concerns about significant harm were carried out more quickly, and there was more opportunity to bring together different practitioner perspectives in deciding next steps, said the report.
However, in other areas, MACPT implementation was at an earlier stage and partners were seeking to integrate the teams into existing child protection arrangements, including multi-agency safeguarding hubs, strategy discussions and case conferences.
Embedding the lead child protection practitioner role
There was similar variation in relation to the implementation of the LCPP role.
Under the reforms, when families fall under child protection, LCPPs, alongsidethe wider MACPT, take responsibility for child protection investigations and other processes, while FHLPs continue to case hold and support the family.
Where LCPPs were more embedded, leaders said they provided guidance to FHLPs on cases, including on whether they should be escalated to child protection, leading to more proportionate intervention.
Senior managers in these areas also said the role provided a more sustainable career option for senior social workers than alternatives, with improved work-life balance and opportunity for reflection, thereby boosting retention.
However, in other areas, there was more uncertainty over the LCPP role and how it worked alongside the FHLP, with questions including whether the LCPP should case hold, carry out direct work or provide oversight only.
Further evaluation of DfE reforms
In its conclusion, the report said: “The findings suggest that while the direction of travel is positive, continued support will be required to embed multi-agency child protection arrangements consistently across areas, clarify roles and responsibilities within the system, and address wider system constraints that influence the pace and consistency of implementation.”
It recommended that areas where MACPTs were more established share learning with others on how they were implementing the teams, and that further clarity was needed on the roles and responsibilities of LCPPs, including how they worked alongside FHLPs.
Verian, the NCB and research consultancy Alma Economics’ evaluation of the programme for the DfE is ongoing, with future work due to include:
- Interviews and focus groups with frontline practitioners across councils and partner agencies, along with a multi-agency workforce survey.
- A survey of families, along with additional interviews with children and families.
- Further exploration of the variation in the implementation of multi-agency working, particularly in relation to MACPTs.
- Detailed examination of the implementation of the FHLP and LCPP roles.
Source: Community Care
