2012 - Leicestershire's Family Poverty Strategy

Leicestershire’s Family Poverty Strategy
June 2012

Family Poverty Needs Assessment & Strategy
Contents
Executive Summary 1
1 Introduction: What is family poverty? 12
2 Our need: How does family poverty present
itself in Leicestershire
14
3 Our approach: How we will tackle family poverty 21
4 Our model: how we work with families 25
5 Building a family’s capacity to exit or avoid
poverty
32
6 Building capacity to help families help
themselves
49
Appendix A – National Policy Context 60
Appendix B – Organisations who contributed to the needs
assessment and strategy development
64
Appendix C – Summary of recommendations and responsible
partnership and project boards
65
Appendix D – Definition of ‘Prevention’; ‘Early Intervention’;
‘Specialist Intervention’
73
Appendix E – Family poverty basket of indicators 75

Executive Summary
Our child poverty needs assessment led us to the
conclusion that to tackle child poverty, we need a
family poverty strategy.

What is child poverty?
Technically, child poverty is defined as the proportion of
children living in families with a reported income of less
than 60% of median income.
On 2009 figures, it was officially estimated that there are
16,165 children in poverty in Leicestershire, 11.66% of all
the county’s children1
. A figure and proportion rising
having stood at 14,495 and 10.5% in 2008 and likely to rise
further given the reforms and reductions to benefits.
This technical definition is too narrow however. There are
key questions we can ask to establish a deeper
understanding. Does a child have a hot meal every day?
Can a child or their parent or guardian buy essentials when
necessary? Do they have access to a safe outdoor space, a
space to do homework? Does a child have a week on
holiday every year or pursue a hobby or leisure activity
once a month? Can friends come round to where they
live?
Our needs assessment:
Underpinning this
strategy is
Leicestershire’s Child
Poverty Needs
Assessment – an
assessment based on
data, the experience of
frontline workers and
experts, and the
experiences and
opinions of the
county’s children
themselves.
We don’t have answers for these questions. Between and
beyond the technical definition and these material
concerns lies an understanding of what child poverty
actually is. Our needs assessment has looked between and
beyond analysing datasets, interviewing practitioners and
young people and establishing a greater understanding of
what is child poverty and how it affects families. This
understanding shapes this strategy.
We have concluded that poverty is not exclusively or
helpfully measured solely by income. And any response
should neither ignore nor concentrate solely upon it. It is
1
Page 7, Leicestershire’s Child Poverty Needs Assessment, Figure 1 - National Indicator 116 –
Proportion of children living in poverty in Leicestershire and England as defined by those children
living in families with a reported income is less than 60% of median income, which has since been
updated at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/personal-tax-credits/cps-la09.xls

obvious however that our ability to eradicate child poverty
in Leicestershire will be tested if there is not a significant
growth in the county’s economy.
Poverty is neither permanent nor a condition of neglect.
Poverty is often situational and sometimes
intergenerational. Poverty is more likely to exist among
children in care or adults who were once children in care,
in families from some ethnic groups, in families that
contain young carers, or those with offenders, or those
who have substance misuse issues, or mental health
problems, or within families that contain disabled parents
or children. In a rural county like Leicestershire, poverty
can also be exacerbated by the distance and costs
associated with accessing services and opportunities.
Our needs assessment has led us to the conclusion that to
seek a definition and solution to child poverty neglects one
essential and obvious fact: a child’s poverty is an outcome
of a family’s poverty. It is neither created nor best
eradicated in isolation.
One family we worked
with had lived without
a cooker, fridge freezer
or washing machine for
3 months. They were
accused of
neglect because the
children’s clothes were
dirty, but no washing
machine and having to
shop daily? Living like
this would be a
challenge to anyone.2
Analysis and experience, spreadsheet and frontline, also
tells us that child poverty transfers through the same
families in the same localities (for example, over half of
children living in parts of Coalville and Loughborough are
living in poverty). These families often have additional,
complex needs which traverse both adult’s and children’s
services.
Poverty and neglect is
often confused – it is
presented as neglect
but, when you look at
what is going on,
actually it’s about
poverty.3
Our needs assessment didn’t just inform the strategy
about the causes and effects of poverty but also
considered the staff and services targeted at removing and
alleviating them. Staff interviewed thought that there
appeared to be a lack of understanding about the
existence of poverty, and its potential causes and
consequences. Similarly there was frustration that
interventions couldn’t be more low-key, direct and simple
2
Page 19, Leicestershire Child Poverty Needs Assessment
3
Page 20, Leicestershire Child Poverty Needs Assessment

and a consensus that all approaches to tackling child
poverty needed to be family-led.
Our approach
This is why you are reading Leicestershire’s Family Poverty
Strategy and not its Child Poverty Strategy. It is our
premise that addressing family poverty is the most
enduring way of addressing poverty among children.
Addressing, for example, issues around aspiration within a
school setting will only have limited success if these
messages aren’t reinforced, or indeed, are contradicted, at
home. A healthy, hot school meal supports a balanced
diet, it doesn’t provide one. An intervention managed
within the four walls of a public building, helps; one
successfully managed within the four walls of a home,
lasts.
“We need to work with
the whole family. We
can’t ignore the
parents.”
If you have little time and no transport, a Children’s Centre
just a few miles away might be of no benefit. If a health
visitor can’t offer or signpost someone to sound financial
advice, the next person who does offer any financial advice
may well be a loan shark. A child’s and their family’s needs
are the basis for this strategy and should be in all our work
in the future - not a corporate logo, management chain,
job description or inspection regime.
“It’s very much a sense
of you come to us.”
This is why you are reading Leicestershire’s Family Poverty
Strategy and not Leicestershire County Council’s.
Our model: How we work with families
As public service providers and commissioners in
Leicestershire, we are benefiting from a greater
understanding of how we might set about changing ‘when’
and ‘how’ we provide services. Leicestershire has been a
pioneer for working with troubled families with complex
needs, to understand their challenges and to deliver a
better approach to all such families.

Initial estimates put the number of troubled families in
Leicestershire at around 1,300 and we are also able to
estimate that there are around 2,000 families at risk from
having complex needs. These 3,300 families contain a
significant proportion of the 16,165 children estimated to
be living in poverty.
In addition to the child poverty needs assessment, this
learning has also been informed by other sources of
insight. We have trawled data and respected and
creditable literature4
, mapped individual journeys of
Leicestershire’s families lives and their interactions with
the services we provide, and worked closely with some of
the most troubled families’ in Leicestershire5
.
As a result we know that families perceive the services
they receive to be individual led, problem led and not
family led; managed to meet that service provider’s own
procedures and services rather than that families need.
There is a language barrier; professionals speaking
professionally, not personally, torn between befriending
and professional responsibilities. Families prefer
individuals to systems.
Instead of waiting to work with families when things have
hit crisis point, we need to understand their challenges
earlier and to provide the right sort of support earlier.
There are an increasing number of examples where this
approach has been developed6
. Across 15 local authorities
working with troubled families, results showed a
significant improvement in outcomes for nearly a half
(46%) of families. Areas were also able to demonstrate
savings to local partners, so that for every £1 spent, the
Family Pathfinders generated a financial return of £1.90.
Parenting issues were
highlighted as an area
of concern in 57% of
the 1408 families
monitored – on exit,
two thirds of families
had recorded
significant
improvements.
Based on building relationships rather than negotiating
4
See Appendix A for a review of policy developments since 2010
5
See http://www.leicestershiretogether.org/index/partnerships/community_budgets-
3/fwcn/insightphase.htm for all sources of insight used in the Families with Complex Needs work
6
https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DFE-RB154.pdf

systems, with support and advocacy, and where a nudge
develops into a plan developed jointly with a family,
outcomes improve and costs fall - this very different
approach produced these very different and positive
results. Achieving these improved and sustainable
outcomes for families was dependent on the use of a key
worker responsible for providing and coordinating this
support. This key worker was, in turn, supported by a
robust framework of support, normally provided by a
multi-disciplinary team of experts.
Leicestershire will seek to apply a similar, though bespoke
approach for 3,300 families across the entire county and
some of its key principles to all service provision. The focus
will be on earlier intervention, preventing vulnerable
families and individuals from developing complex needs
and requiring costly and intense interventions. The
complexities of the public sector will not be left to families
to navigate or negotiate but managed by all our staff,
across all our organisations. For the county’s 3,300 most in
need families this would take the form of a dedicated
family support team with a lead family worker, who would
advocate and work for and with a family. To deliver this
approach:
School attendance was
an issue on entry for
30% of families. For
half of these families,
this was no longer on
exiting the project.
• We will develop integrated public and voluntary
sector family focussed services, designed around a
single Leicestershire Family Model. This model will:
• be sustainable and designed to build a family’s
capacity, self-esteem, aspirations and relationships
• focus on early years and early intervention
• aim to move families nearer to independence
from costly public sector services
• This model will be supported by
• dedicated family support team with a lead
family worker developing a whole family
assessment model
• establishing co-located staff and services

We will know we have made a positive difference on
the outcomes of troubled families when:
• The number of children living safely at home
increases
• The number of high end interventions falls (i.e.,
ASBOs, injunctions, crimes)
• Attendance rates at schools increases
• The number of families evicted falls
• The number of homeless families falls
• The number of families with complex needs falls.
Building a family’s capacity to exit or avoid
poverty
The model will be developed to help families with or at risk
of having complex needs, buts its fundamental principles
are applicable to all families experiencing poverty. A family
where a parent is in employment and which is a source of
loving, affirming attachments; a home where a healthy
diet, an active lifestyle and learning is encouraged –
combined these can provide a long term sustainable exit
out of poverty. A family needs to be able to provide this
material, emotional and practical support and
encouragement. Our aim is to improve a family’s ability or
capacity to provide this support.
This includes making support available through all major
life changes - for pregnant mothers, for families with
children under 5, finding work, for families with children of
school age, and all the way through to children about to
leave compulsory full time education. It also requires
support for parents and young people so that they can be
enabled to access work through the provision of childcare,
training and education opportunities post 16. Poverty
often increases the need for this support.
Poorer children
systematically do
worse on both
cognitive and
behavioural outcomes
at both age three and
age five. Poorer
children tend to be less
ready for school.
• We will support the implementation of new work
programmes that tackle long term and
multigenerational unemployment.
• We will work with businesses, schools and colleges

to ensure that people in Leicestershire have the
right employment skills to take on the job
opportunities that will arise in Leicestershire.
• We will help families develop ‘skills for life’,
supporting the development and delivery of a range
of community based initiatives, including managing
budgets.
• We will help parents with their confidence,
encourage breastfeeding and enable families to
make healthy choices about the food they eat and
the amount of physical activity they participate in.
We will know we have made a positive difference
to a family’s skills for life when
• The number of workless households falls
• The number of unfilled vacancies falls
• Infant mortality rates and low birth weight figures
improve.
• The number of new mums starting and continuing
to breastfeed increases.
There are a number of other factors which affect a child’s
life chances – and school readiness is key, emotionally and
academically. For example, there is a strong link between
significant language delay on entry to school7
and low
attainment later on and across the UK, 50% of children
from socially disadvantaged backgrounds have language
delay issues on entering school. A child’s readiness for
school can also be enhanced by increasing their physical
activity levels and links have been drawn between this kind
of activity and better behaviour and ability to learn8
.
Many children with
language delay [and] a
pre-school history of
persistent disorders
can [have them]
resolved by age 5½.9
• We will target our priority neighborhoods with
speech and language development and physical
7
http://www.c4eo.org.uk/themes/earlyintervention/files/early_intervention_grasping_the_nettle_ful
l_report.pdf
8
Len Almond, British Heart Foundation
9
Bishop D V M and Adams 1990. A Prospective Study of the Relationship Between Specific Language
Impairment, Phonological Disorders and Reading Retardation, Journal of Child Psychology and
Psychiatry 31

activity programmes.
• We will ensure that staff who work with children
before they go to school develop good working
relationships with staff in schools to enable a good
transition for children, bringing the whole family
into a child’s education.
We will know we have made a positive difference
to all children’s readiness for school when
• The development gap at foundation stage closes,
between children growing up in poverty and their
peers.
• The attainment gap is reduced at Key Stage 2 in
English and maths closes, between children
receiving free school meals and their peers.
To break the intergenerational cycle of child poverty,
young people today must have the skills, confidence and
opportunity to enter adulthood able to participate in and
enjoy relationships and work. This is a significant issue.
Continuing in learning is linked to social and economic
benefits. The priority is therefore to increase the number
of 17 and 18 year old young people learning and the
amount of young people (16-24) in work.
• Our colleges and businesses will work with young
people to develop economically competitive, sector
appropriate and fit for market apprenticeship
opportunities and training courses which equip
Leicestershire’s young people with the skills our
economy needs.
• Our public services will look to develop work
experience opportunities, apprenticeships and
career pathways for those young people who are
often excluded from accessing these choices
particularly young carers, children in care and
disabled children. We will also ask those
organisations who we will commission to provide
Findings show that
almost half of young
people thought that
creating more
opportunities for
people to develop skills
was the best thing
which could be done to
reduce child poverty.
The proportion of 17-
18 was almost 60%.10
10
Page 7, Leicestershire’s Peer Led Review, part of the county’s Child Poverty Needs Assessment

services to provide similar opportunities.
We will know we have made a positive difference when
• The attainment gap closes between children
receiving free school meals and their peers (based
on achieving Key Stage 4 – five A*-C including
English and maths and achieving Level 3 at age 19).
• The percentage of young people in education,
employment and training increases.
• The percentage of people from the care system are
in education and employment at the age of 19
increases.
Building capacity to help families help
themselves
For a wider more permanent impact, for a far more
efficient and effective deployment of resources, something
which can not be simply be put into a one action needs to
change. How we work.
GP surgeries, health visitors, schools, social workers,
housing officers, probation staff, the police, political
leaders, managers etc.. All and many more influence the
services that prevent a family becoming poor or lift them
out of poverty. To help families help themselves, the way
we share our resources – such as our budgets, staff,
buildings, websites, and information needs to integrate.
Help, support and advocacy should be a seamless offer
which doesn’t fray the first time two organisations are
required to work together.
[We need] to improve
the capability of
officers - being clear of
the competencies
needed to take this
wider view within a
profession11
.
• We will make access to our services simpler and
easier through shared websites, call centres and
buildings.
• We will deliver multi agency training programmes
for both the adult and children’s workforce
• We will develop a systematic approach to
signposting and referring families to more targeted
11
Page 21, Leicestershire’s Child Poverty Needs Assessment

and intensive intervention
• We will make easier the exchange of information to
allow these referrals.
• We will ensure the voice of users is heard at a
county and local level so that services are designed
and provided around families needs
• We will consider the impact on poverty of all
significant decisions.
The reasons why families live in poverty are numerous and
individual to that family. The solutions to helping a family
exit or avoid poverty need to reflect that. Our needs
assessment offers an understanding of why and how
poverty affects a family; our strategy proposes the basis
for an approach based on this understanding.
We will know we have made a positive difference when
• The number of families who live in poverty falls.

Family Poverty: Introduction
Needs Assessment & Strategy
Our aim
It is our aim to reduce child poverty in Leicestershire. It is our premise that this is
best achieved through addressing family poverty.
“Yes, there’s poverty everywhere, wherever you go, even in the villages.”
1. What is family poverty?
1.1 Does a child have a hot meal every day? Can a child or their parent or
guardian buy essentials when necessary? Do they have safe access to a safe
outdoor space, a space to do homework? Does a child have a week away on
holiday every year or pursue a hobby or leisure activity once a month? Can
friends come round to their house?
1.2 Leicestershire will attempt to change the way we work so that we can change
the lives our children experience; so that all the children in the county can
answer yes to the questions above.
1.3 There are many, many more manifestations of child poverty than those
questions and many definitions which seek to capture the complexity which
sits behind the why and how child poverty presents itself. The causes of child
poverty are complex; economic, social, medical - spanning service areas as
well as generations. They can be deep rooted or sudden; geographic or
demographic.
1.4 On 2009 figures, it was officially estimated that there are 16,165 children in
poverty in Leicestershire, 11.66% of all the county’s children12
. This is a figure
which is rising having stood at 14,495 in 2008 and may well have risen further
in the intervening two years. However, that naked figure is indicative only as
it neither measures relative poverty nor specific circumstances within
particular communities within Leicestershire. A family and a child do not
relate the poverty they experience to a national trend but to their neighbour.
12
Proportion of children living in poverty in Leicestershire and England as defined by those children
living in families with a reported income is less than 60% of median income - see
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/personal-tax-credits/cps-la09.xls

Children in families in
receipt of CTC (<60%
median income) or
IS/JSA
% of Children in "Poverty"
Under
16 All Children Under 16 All Children
Blaby 1,710 1,945 10.0% 9.6%
Charnwood 4,110 4,630 15.0% 14.2%
Harborough 1,270 1,430 8.0% 7.7%
Hinckley and Bosworth 2,370 2,680 12.9% 12.4%
Melton 1,000 1,125 11.4% 10.8%
North West Leicestershire 2,505 2,820 14.5% 13.9%
Oadby and Wigston 1,340 1,535 13.8% 13.0%
14,305 16,165 12.2% 11.66%
1.5 For this assessment and strategy our needs assessment has established this
local understanding:
“Child poverty is about the resources available to children and families
and their ability to make choices which help them get the best out of life.
Reducing child poverty is about strengthening the protective factors
such as family income, and how it’s spent, aspiration, good parenting and
childcare, and the importance of good supportive social networks.
It is also about dealing with the risk factors present in complex (or
troubled) families, such as inadequate housing, poor diet, drug and
alcohol misuse, domestic abuse, mental health problems, disability and
lack of transport.”
1.6 This understanding encapsulates why this is a Family Poverty Strategy and
not a Child Poverty Strategy. The resources available, the choices made and
the risk factors present which cause a child to live in poverty take place and
exist within families. Therefore it seems only logical that the solutions to
improving resources, improving and broadening choice, and alleviating risk
factors are rooted within the family. In answering the question ‘what is child
poverty?’ any answer needs to begin that it is a function of family poverty.

2. Our need: How does child
poverty present itself in
Leicestershire?

2.1 To change something, it is necessary to understand it. Before a strategy can
be formed to prevent and tackle child poverty, we need to understand its
causes and symptoms. Underpinning this strategy is Leicestershire’s Child
Poverty Needs Assessment – an assessment based on data, the experience of
frontline workers and experts, and the experiences and opinions of the
county’s children themselves. This assessment draws on existing research, it
is not just ‘another needs assessment’ replicating page after page of tables,
charts and maps.
2.2 The strong vision for our assessment, which feeds through into the strategy,
was to produce something which incorporates the views of staff and
communities using the most relevant data, alongside new, qualitative
research into the views of some key practitioners and a youth-led research
project on child poverty.
What practitioners tell us
2.3 Practitioners – frontline workers and experts - have helped shape this
strategy, revealing what causes child poverty and how it presents itself in
Leicestershire - where it exists, what it means and what can, and is, being
done about it. We interviewed x practitioners in Leicestershire.
What young people tell us
2.4 This strategy is based on what young people in the County think about child
poverty. An innovative youth-led research project on child poverty in
Leicestershire was commissioned to ensure that young people had a genuine
voice in this important area of policy development.
What the data tells us
2.5 The strategy examines existing research undertaken by the County Council
and its strategic partners – such as the Childcare Sufficiency Assessment13
,
the report on Income Deprivation Affecting Children in Leicestershire14
– as it
relates to child poverty. Some additional analysis has been undertaken to
complement this and is published for the first time in our needs assessment.
2.6 Data from the Indices of Deprivation 2010 shows that, relative to other parts
of England, Leicestershire does not experience a high level of income
deprivation affecting children and most parts of the county are amongst the
least deprived areas in the country. Generally, there is very little change in
the areas which experience the highest levels of child poverty. In
Leicestershire these are primarily the urban centres around Loughborough,
Melton Mowbray and South Wigston and Coalville. Over half of children living
in Greenhill North East and Loughborough Warwick way are living in poverty.
This is not acceptable.
13
Leicestershire’s Childcare Sufficiency Assessment can be found at http://www.leics.gov.uk/csa
14
Available from http://www.lsr-
online.org/reports/income_deprivation_affecting_children_in_leicestershire

2.7 There are areas of the County in which real child poverty does exist and this
was strongly emphasised by both practitioners and young people in the
County. Local experience also supports national research which establishes
that where families are living in poverty in otherwise more affluent areas the
repercussions can be even worse.
2.8 In every district in the County there are substantial differences in the lives
children and young people are likely to experience. A person born in certain
parts of one district can expect to live almost a decade longer than someone
born a few miles away. They may live in some of the most deprived areas in
the county, where benefit take-up is very high and attainment is very low.
2.9 Analysis of key data-sets in Leicestershire supports practitioner beliefs that
child poverty is multi-layered and transfers through families from one
generation to another in the same localities. A Leicestershire strategy for
reducing child poverty needs to reflect this complex picture and address a
range of issues including education, training, skills and employment of
children and parents. Young people particularly emphasised the importance
of creating opportunities for people to learn and develop new skills to get,
and keep, a job as a pathway out of poverty (see below & Chapter 4,
paragraphs).

The ability to make choices
“What is the definition of poverty? Is it about choice? If so, disabled children
often lack choice. For example, even if you have enough money to go
swimming, if you can’t get in the pool, or there isn’t a suitable changing
facility, you can’t go in.”
2.10 We understand that child poverty is complex. Social problems, such as
mental health, domestic violence, the state of a house, a poor diet, drug and
alcohol misuse, can lead to feelings of not being able to take control or the
make the most of choices available. It can also be compounded by disability
or, for those living in rural parts of Leicestershire, by a lack of transport.
2.11 In a large rural county like Leicestershire transport invariably features as an
important aspect of child poverty. A family that may not on the surface be
regarded as poor begins to experience severe disadvantages due to the
distance and costs associated with accessing services and opportunities.
2.12 The practitioners suggested that families that have suddenly fallen into
poverty may have developed better skills for coping, enabling them to
improve their situation. Sustained/generational poverty however can lead to
low aspirations and feeling trapped. They may want to do well but feel that
“life circumstances are conspiring against them” and that agencies do not
understand. They often feel overwhelmed by issues, not knowing where to
start to address them.
2.13 Practitioners were very clear that creating opportunities alone is not enough
for many people living in poverty in troubled families. Additional support is
required to change long established low familial aspirations and to support
development of practical skills – managing budgets, completing forms – to
enable those in the least well off families to seize and make the most of those
opportunities available to them (see Chapter 4, paragraphs 4.).
2.14 Aspiration is linked to experience. If a parent is unemployed the
consequences are felt by the whole family. Sustained unemployment whilst
young is damaging, and can lead to lower incomes and poorer labour market
experience even decades later, thus continuing the cycle of poverty for their
families.
2.15 We need to break this cycle - the tendencies for children in care growing up
to be parents of children who are also taken into care; cross generation drug
users; repeating cycles of domestic abuse and violence; intergenerational
worklessness.
Strengthening the Protective Factors

2.16 There are some obstructive elements we can realistically tackle in the county.
There are some we can’t. Incomes are expected to fall. Unemployment is
rising and the level of state benefits is being reduced. Our ability to respond
is being tested by significantly reduced budgets.
2.17 To meet this test, we need to concentrate on where we can have an impact
and on whom we will have most impact; building on those supportive factors
which enable families and children to exit poverty and increase their own
resilience, targeting those people who are in most need of this support.
2.18 Factors such as advice and support around parenting, budgeting and income,
encouraging aspiration, facilitating child care and the provision of supportive
social networks are all tangible things we can do and which will help. What
we have to work with, for example in terms of resources, has been reduced
and this is an issue but it is one which we cannot control. What we can
control are the jobs we do and how we do them.
2.19 The statistics around free school meals are revealing when filtered ethnically.
White British pupils on free school meals do far worse than expected
compared to Non White pupils eligible for free school meals who do better
than expected, which may demonstrate the power of parental aspirations.
Dealing with the risk factors - The needs assessments findings
“There are a lot of negative forces around people in a vulnerable position
which they can find hard to resist”
2.20 There is a thread of intergenerational poverty evident in the quantitative
data/analysis for Leicestershire, backed up by qualitative findings from
practitioners and young people and laid out in this report. A picture emerges
of often chaotic families, struggling to cope, with associated behavioural
problems, leading to exclusions and poorer outcomes for young people,
lower levels of attainment and a clear link with unemployment (see Chapter
5).
2.21 Families living in poverty demonstrate a range of poor health outcomes from
tooth decay to obesity, mental health problems and shorter life expectancy.
The link between parental unemployment, low aspirations and child poverty
suggesting a ‘whole family poverty’ approach is vital (see Chapter 5).
2.22 As we have shown, it is well established that certain groups are likely to be
particularly vulnerable to the negative impacts of growing up in poverty, and
that they exist in significant numbers within Leicestershire, including:
some Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic groups
young carers

unemployed parents & young people
offenders – young and old
those with substance misuse & alcohol problems those with
mental health problems
families with disabled parents/children
teenage parents
children in care
Strengthening protective factors and tackling risk factors
2.23 The picture which emerges from this report is that child poverty in
Leicestershire is largely about the resources available to children and families
and their ability to make choices which help them get the best out of life.
2.24 Reducing child poverty is about strengthening the protective factors such as
family income (and how it is spent), aspiration, good parenting and childcare
and supportive social networks. It is also about dealing with the risk factors
present in troubled families suffering from poverty. These include things such
as inadequate housing, poor diet, drug and alcohol misuse, domestic abuse,
mental health problems, disability and lack of transport.
2.25 In order to identify potential recommendations for the strategy, it is useful to
identify the key messages of ‘what we know’:
1. There is a clear and obvious link between child poverty and parental
income but income alone is too simple a measure to provide a true
picture of child poverty in Leicestershire.
2. Children living in poverty in Leicestershire who appear to be at most
risk of experiencing poor outcomes are generally those who live in
families with additional needs which traverse both adult’s and
children’s services.
3. There appears to be a lack of understanding amongst the broader
workforce of the existence of poverty, the potential causes of
poverty, and the consequences of poverty, in terms of impact it may
have on children and families.
4. There is a general consensus amongst the practitioners interviewed as
part of this needs assessment that the interventions required to
alleviate symptoms of poverty and complex need are low key and
simple but must be family-led.
5. Families on low income may not be fully aware of their benefit
entitlement or means of accessing additional support i.e. through
charitable grants.

The findings of the Peer Research Group
The young people who led this research were:
• My name's Gracie, I'm seventeen and for the last few years I've taken an
active role in the youth service including helping to lead a BME project,
taking responsibilities in my club after training to be a senior member and
inspecting youth facilities.
• Hi, I’m Xav. I’ve been involved with the youth service, mainly through my
involvement with Hinckley and Bosworth Youth Council and as a member of
CYCLe (County Youth Council, Leicestershire). I’m 15 and still at school.
• My name is Jess and I got involved with the youth service when they invited
me on the senior member training programme to help my volunteering at a
local church group. Since then I’ve been involved in inspecting youth
services and outside agencies and have recently become the young person’s
rep for North West Leicestershire voice work.
• I’m Laura and I’m 16. I used to volunteer at the church youth group and then
went on the senior member training programme to help me with that. I’ve
done the young inspection training and have been involved in inspecting
youth groups.
• My name’s Kev and I’m 16. I’ve been going to local youth groups in my area
for the last couple of years and just started to get involved in voice work by
accident really. I went on the senior member training programme and go to
our locality forum where we have our say on what’s happening in the area.
• I’m Amber. I’m 15 and I’ve been involved with the youth service for about 2
years. This started with taking part in activities and sessions with the young
people in care project, and then I did the senior member training
programme and young inspections.
From our research, our findings show the following:
• Money and benefits alone are not the answer to reducing child poverty,
• The most important thing for young people in poverty is to have the basic
things like food, water, sleep, and then things like family & friendship.
• There is a difference between extreme poverty that you see in Africa and
poverty in Leicestershire but there are children in Leicestershire living in
poverty.
Based on our findings the Peer Research Group recommends that:
• There needs to be more provision and more services for young people that
opens up opportunities for them to develop new skills to find a job and stay
in work.
• A young person’s version of the Leicestershire County Council Child Poverty
strategy/action plan is produced, so that other young people around
Leicestershire can understand what the County Council plans to do about it.
• There is more youth and peer led research done about issues that affect
young people in Leicestershire.

3. Our Strategy: How we will
tackle child poverty

“If we get it right now we’ll see the benefits in maybe 20 years.”
3.1 No matter how complex the causes, no matter how difficult the symptoms,
child poverty has one significant, consistent factor throughout: the child. Any
strategy must start and end with the child and their family. Ours does.
3.2 We provide many services which contribute to a child’s safety, development,
enjoyment and happiness. Playgrounds, parks, leisure centres, children’s
centres, libraries, supported housing, social care, children’s homes, adoption
and fostering services, schools and colleges, all contribute to keeping
children from, and lifting children out of poverty. And these are nothing to
the safety, development, enjoyment, happiness and love families in
Leicestershire provide their children.
3.3 Many families live in poverty in Leicestershire. Many do well and achieve
good outcomes, whether it is a parent finding employment or a child
achieving well in school. Poverty is not permanent and, above all, how
poverty presents itself in most cases does not equate to neglect.
3.4 This strategy aims to ensure the provision of the right kind of advice and
information for the many and support and intervention for the far smaller
numbers of families for whom poverty crosses generations and where there
are more complex needs which require attention. The problem of firmly
rooted poverty that crosses generations is not being alleviated quickly
enough.
3.5 Our work in the last few years developing new approaches to this issue and in
the last few months developing this strategy has led to two conclusions
which form the basis of a new approach to tackling child poverty.
“We need to work with the whole family. We can’t ignore the parents.”
Our approach
To target support to enable more vulnerable Leicestershire families to be
successful through:
• Prevention & early intervention - Helping to improve outcomes for
all families leading to reduced demand for public services
• Earlier Intervention - Targeting support to families at risk of
developing complex needs through earlier intervention
• Integrated Support - Improving outcomes for those that already have
complex needs
Please see Appendix D for a more detailed definition of these terms.
3.6 First, a child’s poverty is an outcome of a family’s poverty. Addressing, for
example, issues around aspiration within a school setting only will have
limited success if these messages aren’t reinforced, or indeed are
contradicted, at home. A healthy, hot school meal supports a balanced diet,

it doesn’t provide one. An intervention managed within the four walls of a
public building, helps; one successfully managed within the four walls of a
home, lasts. This is why you are reading Leicestershire’s Family Poverty
Strategy and not its Child Poverty Strategy. It is our premise that addressing
family poverty is the most enduring way of addressing poverty among
children.
3.7 Second – we need to work better together. It is common sense and an often
said adage but one that has proved elusive so far. Complications in the
system must be managed by providers not users; the public sector, not the
public. We need to ensure our system provides what is needed and those
who need it can access these services or are enabled to do so.
3.8 To achieve this, it is no good co-ordinating services at the point they reach
the frontline with different practices, overlapping responsibilities and little or
no information sharing. To work better together, we need to plan services
together with other providers and above all with citizens and service users.
To plan services together, we need to be able to share our budgets, staff and
buildings.
“It’s very much a sense of you come to us.”
Our approach
To change the culture of public services to provide:
• seamless, integrated services to families with or in danger of having
complex needs
• services designed in partnership with citizens and service users
3.9 If you have little time and no transport, a Children’s Centre just a few miles
away might be of no benefit. If a health visitor can’t offer or signpost
someone to sound financial advice, the next person who does offer any
financial advice may well be a loan shark. A child’s and their family’s needs
are the basis for this strategy and should be in all our work in the future - not
a corporate logo, management chain, job description or inspection regime.
This is why you are reading Leicestershire’s Family Poverty Strategy and not
Leicestershire County Council’s.
3.10 In Leicestershire we are developing and implementing integrated services.
We are supporting a much closer relationship between services and
communities and citizens and service users to improve understanding so that
we can design and deliver services better.
3.11 Different funding and commissioning arrangements are giving localities more
freedom to spend money and design services to meet local need rather than
national requirements.

3.12 For example, we are making the case that national funding that would have
been channelled toward specific work around community safety, drugs
intervention and treatment, training, youth justice, probation, family nurses
and health visitors should be given to Leicestershire as a single resource for
us to determine how services are delivered. Locally, we are exploring how we
can pool more funds which will enable a redesign of services with housing,
health, arts, sports, policing, schools, social care, youth services and cultural
services so services can be designed with partners, citizens and service users.
3.13 The eradication of family poverty sits at the centre of this new approach. The
success of this new imaginative, liberated cross-sector approach will be
measured in its ability to effectively tackle a multi-faceted and often deep-
rooted issue like family poverty.
3.14 We will be supporting this family-based, multi-agency approach across three
key work areas:
• chapter four details how we should develop a family’s capacity to exit or
avoid poverty with an emphasis on prevention and early intervention for
0-6 year olds (not just 0-5) and earlier intervention for all children;
• chapter five details that once an integrated more intensive intervention is
required, it always puts the whole family at the centre;
• chapter six details how the way we work together needs to change; how
we make decisions, use our resources, manage our staff and handle the
information we share no longer hinders but enables a more strategic and
targeted approach to help staff help families help themselves and utilise
the approaches detailed in the previous chapter;
Who is taking the lead
Leicestershire Together will be responsible for the eradication of family poverty in
Leicestershire by 2020.

4. Our model: How we work with
families

“For families in these
situations, the enormity
of their issues can be so
overwhelming that it is
difficult for them to know
where to start, so they
don’t15
.”
“I knew that I needed
help. I asked for it. I feel
that I was more or less
ignored.”16
“..all areas and their
partners can challenge the
way things are currently
done and transform the
way public services are
provided so they more
closely meet the needs of
those communities and
provide better services for
less17
.”
Our aim
To reduce the number of families that need high cost care, support or
intervention by helping them be more self-sufficient and receive
preventative / earlier interventions.
4.1 The experience of the frontline worker who provided the quote above
illustrates the low level of take-up of support services by many people living
in poverty. The outcome is that just because a particular service or
opportunity exists does not mean that people are always able to take
advantage of that opportunity.
4.2 The experience of the families who need to access these services illustrates
why there may be a low take up. Families feel fear and a sense of being
judged when receiving support; a sense of being either ignored or when they
do receive attention, being ‘done to’ rather than ‘for’ and ‘with.’ This
perception needs to change.
4.3 This chapter analyses when and how families access these services. Instead of
working with families when things have or are about to get reach a crisis, we
need to understand their challenges earlier and to provide the right sort of
support earlier.
4.4 We need to focus on earlier intervention, preventing vulnerable families and
individuals from developing complex needs and requiring drastic
interventions. And we need to ensure that that our families with complex
needs get the right support they need which helps them achieve the greater
independence.
15
Page 30, Child Poverty Needs Assessment
16
Page 6, Home Start Family Consultations, July-August 2011, available at
http://www.leicestershiretogether.org/211111_homestart_consultations.pdf
17
Number 10 Website, 12 October 2011

Background
4.5 As public service providers and commissioners in Leicestershire, we are
benefiting from a greater understanding of how we might set about
delivering this change. Leicestershire has been a pilot for working with
families to understand their challenges and to pioneer a new approach.
4.6 Much of the work has centred on working with troubled families who have
complex needs. What represents a complex need? The Social Exclusion
Taskforce identified in 2007 a number of characteristics, which has since
been added to in 2010 and through our own research in Leicestershire.
Five or more of the following characteristics would represent a family with
complex needs
Involvement in crime and ASB Family in debt
No parent in the family is working Poor parenting
Poor quality or overcrowded housing Child behavioural problems
No parent has a qualification Limited support network
Mother has mental health problems Child substance abuse problems
At least one parent has a long
standing and limiting illness or
disability
Truancy, exclusion or low
educational attainment
Family has low income (below 60%
of the median)18
Adult with learning difficulties
Family cannot afford a number of
food and clothing items
Not in education, employment or
training
Child protection issues Communication problems
Domestic violence Child is a carer
Marriage or relationship breakdown Teenage parent(s)
Drugs and/or alcohol misuse
4.7 As mentioned earlier, we estimate that there are 16,165 children in
Leicestershire who live in poor households19
. Initial estimates put the number
of troubled families who have complex needs in Leicestershire at around
1,300 and we are also able to estimate that there are around 2,000 families
at risk from having complex needs. Even with this indicative figure, we can
see among these 3,300 families a significant proportion of the 16,165
children estimated to be living in poverty will be contained. Virtually all the
families with complex needs identified in Leicestershire have a low income.
4.8 Any new approach adopted for families with, or at risk of having, complex
needs will therefore have a significant impact on our overall ability in
18
The official definition of a child in poverty is of child who lives in a house whose income is below
this threshold
19
Proportion of children living in poverty in Leicestershire and England – since updated from
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/personal-tax-credits/cps-la09.xls

Leicestershire to reduce the number of families living in poverty in the
county.
What our insight told us
4.9 In addition to the child poverty needs assessment, this strategy is also
informed by the insight developed to form the basis of designing this new
approach. This exercise has, as you’d expect, trawled through the data,
literature and best practice that is available. It has called upon interviews
with practitioners and families; it has mapped individual journeys of people’s
lives and their interactions with the services we provide. An ethnographer
has conducted what he described as a ‘deep hanging out’ exercise with
several families. All have enabled our design to incorporate the lived
‘experience’ of troubled families 20
.
4.11 The emerging findings are particularly instructive. Families perceive the
services they receive to be problem led, not family led and managed to meet
that service provider’s own procedures rather than a families need. There is a
language barrier; professionals speaking professionally, not personally, torn
between befriending and professional responsibilities.
4.12 What a family fears and what a family recognises as helpful highlights the
spiky relationship many have with the state. Families fear the police and
social services; they appreciate school, new housing, and an advocate who
works on their behalf. The relationships between these families and services
are sometimes confrontational and untrusting and although there was an
awareness of the support available, access was confusing and solutions
offered were often provided in isolation of other issues. Families preferred
individuals to systems, where time was given and trust established.
4.13 The consequences of this relationship are that where help is needed it is not
always given and where help is given it is not always effective. This can lead
to an adverse effect of on a person’s aspiration, can mean that long term
physical and mental health remain unresolved and that long term for an
individual becomes intergenerational across a family.
Examples of a new approach producing better outcomes
4.14 We have established a case for change and we are establishing a case for the
kind of change that is required. There are an increasing number of examples
where a different approach has been developed and two are highlighted in
this strategy which have helped us in Leicestershire to develop and design a
new way of working with families.
20
All of these insight reports are available from
http://www.leicestershiretogether.org/index/partnerships/community_budgets-
3/fwcn/insightphase.htm

Working with 1,400 plus families in 15 local authorities
4.15 A nationwide programme launched in 2007 in 15 local authorities and
working with over 1,400 families aimed to develop local responses to the
needs of families who face multiple and complex social, economic, health and
child problems as described above.
4.16 The model is family-led, and builds capacity for families to lead their own
change process. It creates opportunities to support families as they progress
through the programme and into the community. It also supports families to
build their own aspirations for their future leading to individuals seeking
opportunities of employment and gaining new skills.
4.17 The programme called upon the use of a key worker responsible for providing
and coordinating this support. This key worker in turn was supported by a
robust framework of support, normally provided by a multi-disciplinary team
of experts.
4.18 The outcomes were marked. At the beginning of the programme parenting
issues were highlighted as an area of concern in 57% of the 1408 families
monitored – on exit, two thirds of families had recorded significant
improvements. Similarly, school attendance was an issue on entry for 30% of
families. For half of these families, this was no longer an issue on exiting the
project. Improvements were recorded across a number of wide-ranging
outcomes around domestic violence, housing, familial relationships, child
protection, and anti-social behaviour.
Case Study: The Family Intervention Project, Melton
In Melton Mowbray, Laura is a single mother of nine children and is struggling to
bring up her family on benefits. After splitting up with her third partner, Laura was
hit with depression and lost control of the household. Two of her children, Shane
(16) and Ben (14) tell of days spent throwing stones at houses and smashing
windows. The younger Ben admits he was on drugs at the time, but adds he "was a
douche bag".
Her family were the recipients of frequent complaints as a result of her children's
behaviour and so the Family Intervention Project (FIP) stepped in. The government
introduced FIPs in 2006 to deal with families perceived as "lost causes".
Where previously there could be up to 20 services involved with a family, a "FIP"
key worker is put in place to co-ordinate intervention through parenting classes and
funding leisure activities for the kids. Steve, a FIP senior project coordinator
describes their aims: "It’s about getting the balance right. I mean we are not going
in there to parent for her. Ultimately she has to take responsibility for herself and
her family."
He said that without FIP Laura's family would have most '"certainly" been evicted. If
an eviction had occurred that could have cost the government up to a quarter of a

million pounds, whereas a FIP intervention would cost around £60,000.
The family feel they have benefited from the FIP programme with mother Laura
saying: "I think I’m a better mum to my kids that what I was back then. "Over 3,000
families have now been supported by FIP’s. Although the average shows a
reduction in anti-social behaviour, with £125 million spent since 2006, FIP projects
do come at a price.
The average length of intervention is one year, after which the team gradually
withdraw causing concerns for Laura about what happens afterwards: "I’m a bit
worried once they stop working with the family that Shane and Ben are gonna go
back to being rebels and causing havoc." Courtesy of Channel 4 News
4.19 The up front cost for the Family Intervention Project cost described above
was higher than might have normally been provided but the final outcome
makes the financial case. For example, an eviction process can cost up to
£250,000. The 12 month intensive family intervention programme ran in
Melton cost £60,000. There were family intervention projects which
managed, among other outcomes, to avoid an eviction process from taking
place. The saving is stark, the outcome positive. The cost though has
previously been met by a different budget that that which felt the benefit.
This distinction has been a barrier in the past which needs to be removed.
Applying these lessons in Leicestershire
4.20 We have learnt a lot and continue to do so. However, we are now closer to
being ready to implement this learning. There are crucial differences in what
we will attempt in Leicestershire and what has been attempted up to now.
First, scale. Leicestershire will seek to work with thousands of families rather
than 12 families like in Swindon, and across the whole county, not just one
district. Second is funding. There will be reallocation of public resources, but
in addition there will also be an attempt to use the kind of savings illustrated
above as leverage for a social impact bond. These bonds would be acquired
from sources outside of the public sector and could help to remove the gap
between who invests and who benefits from adopting this new approach.
4.21 The model will be based around a dedicated family support team with a lead
family worker, who would advocate and work for and with a family. This
worker would support the family and co-ordinate relevant and required
services, serve as a positive role model and spend more time working with
family members within the home and the community. This worker would
advocate on behalf of the family and would have access to a budget that they
could commission services on behalf of this family. Around this dedicated
worker, some core principles would be put into place in what we offer to
families and how we work together.

Our offer to families How we work together
Support will focus around the whole
family and their priorities and be flexible
and in a language the family understands
Whole family assessments will be
developed
Working with children means working
with their carers and parents
Family teams will require administrative
support
The approach is sustainable by building a
family’s capacity by
• Recognising strengths
• Build self-esteem, skills, relationships
and aspirations
• Develop resilience for families
• Has clear purpose in contacts
Acknowledging that it is ok to go in and
out of support (but not care)
Co located services in each locality
• Local teams will provide local
solutions
• Sensitive to local needs,
opportunities and intelligence
• Local commissioning - linked to
locality partnership groups
Will focus on early years and earlier
intervention
• Building on existing good practice
• Develop stronger links with mental
health
• Develop a greater understanding of
intergenerational parenting
Teams will have high quality and well
trained staff who can
• Maintain a sense of hope
• Share information among
professionals including training and
assessments
Chapter 5 Chapter 6
Recommendation 1 - Developing a family based model
Leicestershire will develop an integrated public and voluntary sector family focussed
services designed around a single Leicestershire Family Model. This model will:
• be sustainable and designed to build a family’s capacity, self-esteem,
aspirations and relationships
• focus on early years and early intervention
• aim to move families nearer to independence from costly public sector
services
This model will be achieved through the following changes to current working
practices
• a dedicated family support team with a lead family worker, who would
advocate and work for and with a family developing a whole family
assessment model
• establishing co-located staff and services
• be provided through a mix of county wide, locality and personalised
commissioning
• be provided with high qualified staff who can maintain a sense of hope

5. Building a family’s capacity to
exit or avoid poverty

Our aim
That Leicestershire’s families have the capacity to provide loving,
affirming attachments, a healthy diet, an active lifestyle and
stimulating learning environments inside and outside the home so
that key transitions such as going to school, college or work are
successfully managed.
5.1 The learning borne out of our insight into families with, or at risk of having,
complex needs will be targeted in a service model which will help these 4000
families, buts its fundamental principles apply to all families. Instead of
waiting to work with families when things have or are about to hit a crisis, we
need to understand their challenges earlier and to provide the right sorts of
support at the right time.
5.2 This chapter maps out how we plan to offer this support to families so that,
ultimately, they can improve their life chances and exit poverty. This includes
the support available for pregnant mothers, for families with children under
5, for families with children of school age, and all the way through to children
about to leave full time education. It begins and ends with how parents and
young people can be enabled to access to work through the provision of
childcare and training and education opportunities post 16.
5.3 Our aim is to enable a family setting to be the environment which allows for
the successful negotiation through key life changes. A family where a parent
is in employment and which is a source of loving, affirming attachments; a
home where a healthy diet, an active lifestyle and learning is encouraged –
combined these can provide a long term sustainable exit out of poverty. For
this to be provided however, a family needs to be able to provide this love,
support and encouragement. This need is only partially but most obviously
met with money and employment.
5.4 The most sustainable and beneficial of all financial exits from poverty lies in
finding work – work is often the best form of welfare. However, there has to
be work to go into and that work has to be flexible so that an employee can
be a parent also. Simply, without growth and new jobs, we will not achieve
our aim of eradicating family poverty. Obviously, this is not a growth strategy
- we are not creating jobs but increasing people’s capacity to get one which
includes enabling individuals to increase their confidence and self-esteem as
well as develop skills.
The threats to a parent’s capacity to provide
5.5 The thrust of benefit reforms is to remove a perceived dependency on the
benefits system. We are not in a position to argue for a specific application of

the benefit system in Leicestershire. Job opportunities are at a premium and
there is increasing evidence that the income of some of the poorest families
in Leicestershire will reduce21
. This will reduce a parent’s capacity to provide
for their family. This predicted drop in income will not be met with an equal
and opposite increase in their capacity to find work which could militate
against this reduction in income. The barriers which have previously
prevented a parent taking a job remain. The most obvious however is putting
yourself in a position to get a job.
Building a parent’s capacity to provide: developing skills, finding work
5.6 There are jobs; and there are people looking for jobs. Obviously during a
recession or a period of limited growth, the number of jobs available
decreases and the number of people looking for work increases. However,
despite the economic climate, in Leicestershire vacancies remain unfilled. As
an area, our councils and businesses are striving to achieve two things: first,
growth across a variety of sectors to deliver more, and a greater variety of,
jobs; second ensuring that people in Leicester and Leicestershire are able to
take advantage of the jobs available to them. This strategy concentrates on
this second task.
The local economic context22
• For most of 2011, the percentage of people in Leicestershire claiming
Job Seekers Allowance was between 3.4% and 3.7% of the adult
population – over 21,000 in the county in total (insert link to LSRO). This
is a minimum as many people who could work and may wish to work are
not eligible for job seekers allowance.
• The area has retained a significant manufacturing base - 14% of the
workforce are employed in the sector compared to 9% nationally.
• Food and drink manufacturing has become increasingly important to our
economy, accounting for approximately 16% of all manufacturing jobs.
• High technology manufacturing in Charnwood, at science parks in
Leicester and Loughborough and at the new Enterprise Zone near
Hinckley will offer opportunities to strengthen high technology
manufacturing in the area.
• Service sector employment has grown over the last decade and is
projected to continue to grow. This includes logistics and transport,
associated with the sub-region’s central location and communication
links, including East Midlands Airport which has a nationally significant
role as an airfreight hub. In 2012, Marks and Spencer are opening their
major e-commerce distribution centre on the East Midlands Distribution
Centre site in Castle Donington, employing hundreds of people.
• The retail sector has also grown in importance, with major retail centres
at Highcross Leicester, Fosse Park and Loughborough.
21
Institute of Fiscal Studies, Page 3
http://www.familyandparenting.org/Resources/FPI/Documents/FPI_IFS_Austerity_Jan_2012.pdf
22
A full breakdown of the allocation of jobs across sectors can be downloaded from
http://www.llep.org.uk/front/key-documents/key-documents/214252

5.7 So, how can we match and meet the needs of those looking to employ and
those looking to be employed? There are three key areas of work which are
being carried out in Leicestershire which are seeking to provide answers to
this question. The first is to help those troubled families with complex needs,
described in Chapter 4, to gain the confidence and skills to seek and gain
employment; the second is the implementation of the government’s new
Work Programme; and the third is the development of a skills plan for
Leicester and Leicestershire.
New approaches to tackling long-term, multigenerational unemployment
5.9 Using the key design principles which inform the county’s approach to
working with troubled families, the Department for Work and Pensions is
seeking to have someone work as part of a Family Support Team specifically
to tackle entrenched worklessness. So for example, local authorities will be
asked to identify families which suffer from long-term and sometimes multi-
generational unemployment. This dedicated support worker will then work
as part of that family’s support team to develop a 12 month action plan to
develop their skills and find a job; this would also include post-employment
support.
5.10 This tailored individual approach will work alongside the Work Programme,
the government’s new approach to tackling unemployment. In Leicestershire,
this will mean staff working within communities, rather than in offices as
now, or with specific families as described above, and seeking to encourage
an active engagement with a team of advisors who will be seeking to help
people find work. This help involves continuously developing an individual
action plan, which includes a referral to one or more programmes which are
designed to remove the barriers which stop people getting or seeking work –
whether these barriers are around physical access or care responsibilities, a
gap in skills, or confidence and resilience.
Recommendation 2 – Building a parent’s capacity to find work
Leicestershire Together will support the further development of
employment programmes designed to tackle long term unemployment,
working to ensure
• the successful application of the Work Programme in the county
• the successful integration of the targeted employment schemes for
families with long term unemployment with both the Work
Programme and the single Leicestershire Family model.
Plugging the skills gap
5.11 These approaches will be complemented by a local skills plan. One key area
identified in the above approaches and by local employers is the need to plug
this gap. The body charged with this responsibility is the Leicester and
Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (LLEP) - a business led partnership
working with local councils and other partners. The LLEP is developing a Skills

Action Plan, which will specifically identify actions for each of the economy’s
different sectors so that this gap can be filled. For example, asking our
schools and colleges to provide qualifications which make students job-ready
across each sector; asking employers to provide work experience
opportunities as part of the Work Programme or more formal, longer term
apprenticeships; or encouraging people to undertake courses where there
are a large number of vacancies such as those which would enable a career in
the hospitality and tourism sector.
Recommendation 3 – Building capacity; giving parents the right skills
The Leicester and Leicestershire Economic Partnership will develop and
implement a Skills Action Plan.
Building a parent’s capacity to provide: childcare, benefits, and financial
advice
5.12 Another barrier to accessing employment opportunities is enabling parents
to understand the benefits of early learning and childcare and then to access
it. Ensuring the provision of sufficient, high quality, sustainable, accessible
and affordable childcare for children under 14 can allow a lone parent to
work and offers support for a two parent family for both to work. In
Leicestershire 99.4% of childcare is deemed outstanding, good or
satisfactory23
and 90% of children under-14 live within half a mile of
childcare. The cost is rising – modestly with most types of childcare –but
noticeably more steeply for preschool playgroups which have increased in
cost by over a third24
.
5.13 Childcare does cost however and this cost has been recognised as a barrier to
a parent accessing work. If, for example, once you have subtracted your
childcare and travel costs from your salary and you are left with less
disposable income than if you had remained receiving benefits, the
disincentive to work is plain. Childcare is most obviously but by no means
exclusively felt by lone parents as a barrier to finding work. For example
families of children under 3 who have disabled children with a special
educational need or complex behaviour issues have greater difficulty
accessing child care.
5.14 A lone parent with a child under 12 has the right to limit the hours that they
are available to work without jeopardising their Jobseekers Allowance. This is
not extended to a parent who may live with another parent whose ability to
work or care for children is severely limited.
5.15 There are various means which attempt to remove this disincentive. For
example, all 3-4 year old children and 2 year old ‘disadvantaged’ children are
entitled to 15 hours per week for 38 weeks a year of free early education
23
Child Poverty Needs Assessment, Page 50
24
As above

entitlement25
. The offer is wider for families with a disabled child or one who
has special educational needs, for whom the entitlement is for an extra 6
hours per week. As well as adding to a parent’s capacity to work it also has
two significant benefits for children. First, early and positive learning
experiences contribute to making a positive start at school. Second, there is
the increased possibility of early identification of additional need, whether
this is related to Special Educational Need, disability or additional support
needs in the family.
5.16 The offer is limited to 15 hours during term times, which very few jobs can
feasibly accommodate. The free provision can support a parent to find work,
and provides financial help to a parent in work, but is best viewed as a means
of preparing a child for school rather than enabling a parent to start to work
– especially as many parents also look after younger siblings. This will change
in September 2012 when the 15 hours of funded provision will be able to
used flexibly (referred to as the stretched offer) across the year but the limits
remain apparent.
5.17 For families with children under 3 there is a wide variety of nursery
provision26
. The provision for disabled children is currently being developed
to offer significantly more places. Provision for disabled children can be
more expensive due to the need for specialist equipment and additional
staffing etc. and as a consequence we have identified a need to develop
means by which service providers can support families with a disabled child
to have greater access to universal provision.
5.18 A significant way in which the disincentive to work is tackled is through the
support available once you have found a job. Ensuring that a parent is aware
of this support is vital.
5.19 The most sustainable means of helping with a parent’s childcare costs is
through the Working Tax Credit which allows a parent to claim back up to
70% of childcare costs. There are also bridging sources of payment such as a
£200 job grant which you receive when you get a job which can help with the
transition costs such as transport and immediate child care. There are also
top up payments for employed parents with the In Work Credit of £40 a week
for lone parents or for all parents which both helps top up income.
5.20 The level of material support for parents looking for work or in work is not
within this strategy’s gift. Ensuring parents in Leicestershire are aware and
access this support is. So, for example ensuring staff are aware of the detail
of the support available – for example the additional free provision a child
with a disability or a special educational need is entitled to. The evidence
from practitioners is very clear – creating opportunities and providing funding
25
The Early Learning and Childcare Service at Leicestershire County Council manage this provision.
26
These are currently commissioned through a voluntary sector provider who commission services for
0-19 year old disabled children

is not always enough. Additional support is required to help take up of
benefits, manage budgets, complete forms – support which is offered at the
JobCentre Plus currently but which could also be usefully provided
elsewhere.
“We need a culture change ‘how to have a difficult conversation within
universal services’ i.e. nursery staff asking families about their financial
difficulties and referring/signposting on appropriately.”27
5.21 Sound financial advice is the most obvious way of supporting a family which
is experiencing poverty. It is the most obvious but can be the least received.
The evidence of frontline workers suggests that this is because there is a
shared awkwardness of those giving and receiving advice rooted in the
stigma attached to poverty.
Building a parent’s capacity to increase their income
Recommendation 4 - Leicestershire Together should support the
development and delivery of a range of community based initiatives for
families (parent and child together) around skills for life.
This should be delivered on a multi-agency basis and include advice and
information on a range of issues including managing on a budget, debt
avoidance, and benefit entitlements etc. These initiatives should also be
freely made available to the public through such routes as internet and
libraries.
Building a family’s capacity: Leicestershire’s Children Centre Programme
and locality partnerships
5.22 One such space where such advice can be given is through the
Leicestershire’s Sure Start Children’s Centre programme. This programme of
support to families is coordinated across a number organisations and
professions – health visitors, GPs, nursery staff, JobCentre Plus advisors,
among others. The Programme is funded at a county level but organised
within each of the county’s seven districts with six locality partnerships.
5.23 Frank Field asserts that the approach to the foundation years, which he
defines as 0-5, must include children’s centre programmes. As we have
stated in our introduction, although poverty is obviously a function of
income, it is not the only means through which an exit from poverty is
achieved in the long term. A family unit is not just there to manage a
contribution to the local economy but it is the foundation for most people’s
happiness.
27
Page 22, Child Poverty Needs Assessment

5.24 Sure Start Children Centre programmes should provide parents with children
under 5 with holistic support and advice on supporting a family and
parenting. Most offer access to a range of support such as breast feeding,
healthy eating, early reading, training and employment advice and also
access to speech and language therapy and financial advice. Our children
centre programmes are not the sole source of support or coordination for
families within a community but they are one means providing a welcoming,
inclusive, socially mixed and non-stigmatising environment and a conduit to
significant change for many families.
5.25 The case study demonstrates how children’s centres can be a source of
significant change. Through a combination of prevention and early help a
range of outcomes for a family were improved. Whereas before a single
outcome - say healthy eating - would be addressed by escalating through the
traditional prevention (education), intervention (school nurse), support
model (dietician). A health visitor can trigger an intervention for one outcome
(in this case housing) which brokered through a children’s centre can then
allow a number of preventative messages (breast feeding), early
interventions (parenting classes) and more targeted interventions (around a
child’s behaviour). It also managed an intervention which impacted the whole
family – not just a parent and a pre school child.
5.26 Already, the children’s centre programme can evidence significant episodes
of ‘regular support’ delivered within ‘workless households’, which are a
children centre's priority group. This work has increased parenting
confidence and we can demonstrate family journeys into formal learning, as a
precursor to employment.
Providing emotional and health support and advice to families
Recommendation 5 Children’s centres and family outreach workers will
continue to support families in accessing a range of targeted services
commissioned to ‘stimulate’ the change needed within and on behalf of a
family to improve outcomes for the family. These will focus on:
• improving parenting confidence, through parenting courses
• improving dietary and exercise habits through healthy eating and
physical activity programmes

Case Study: Removing risk, providing support
How children’s centres can help families
The family
7 people live in a two bedroom second floor flat (Mum, Dad, Uncle, and 4 children
with mum expecting her fifth child). They are not in receipt of benefits as dad
works full time. However, he only earns minimum wage supported by child and
working tax credit. This income supports all 7.
The family had run up a huge debt on school meals, and when packed lunches
were provided they verged on inadequate. The children were also not accessing
after school activities, and the oldest child in particular always seemed tired. They
were referred to children’s centre staff by the Health Visiting Team who
requested support regarding the family’s social and emotional wellbeing. This
triggered a series of actions which helped the family.
The support they received brokered through children’s centre staff
• The local church delivered a Christmas parcel including food and toys.
• The family were assessed to be overcrowded and were awarded extra ‘points’
on the waiting list for a larger property.
• Mum accessed the ‘Incredible Years’ parenting programme to benefit her
parenting of the younger children.
• Mum started to bring her pre-school children to the stay and play activities
and Chatterbox at the children’s centre.
• Support and guidance was given to mum regarding the children’s diet.
• Family STEPS will make an initial visit to manage a child’s behaviour.
• The local ‘relief in need charity’ purchased bunk beds for the family.
• Mum was referred to the Breast Feeding Alliance who will support her once
she gives birth to her fifth child.
• All debtors were informed that the family had sought support and referred
the family to a specialist debt worker at CAB (Citizens Advice).
• Secured agreement from the school that the family could access the
Opportunities Fund. The older children now access after school activities such
as the Brownies.
The outcomes
• The family are virtually at the top of the housing list.
• Mum and Dad feel more confident about their parenting.
• Mum and Dad shop weekly for groceries and prepare fresh family meals.
• Mum now uses natural nappies, and will be breast feeding her new baby.
• The children access extended school facilities and community groups.
• Mum and younger children access the children’s centre activities.
• The families’ debt problems are being in hand.
• The children now receive school meals paid by the opportunities fund.
• Mum looks happy and relieved. Mum reports that Dad is far less stressed
about the debts, and isn’t so ‘grumpy’. The children thrive, the school reports
that they present as happy, articulate children.

Building a family’s capacity: providing stimulating learning environments
outside the home
There is overwhelming evidence that children’s life chances are most heavily
predicated on their development in the first five years of life.
Frank Field
5.27 Children who perform less well at the start of school tend to perform less
well throughout. A good start in life is therefore hugely important. For
example, around 55% of children who are in the bottom 20% at age seven
remain there at age 16 and less than 20% of them move into the top 60%28
.
The graph below illustrates that poorer children systematically do worse on
both cognitive and behavioural outcomes at both age three and age five.
Poorer children tend to be less ready for school.
5.28 Leicestershire recognises that the period before pregnancy, during pregnancy
and for the first years of a child’s life and an adult’s as a parent are
fundamental. These formative years shape a child’s life chances. During these
years, it is primarily parents who shape their children’s outcomes – a healthy
pregnancy, good mental health, and the way that they parent.
5.29 So, for example we have already prioritised work with young children and
families. Providing parenting courses can support a parent or carer form vital
bonds. Encouraging and empowering good dietary and exercise choices with
parents and young children establishes behaviour which becomes ingrained
and avoids the development of detrimental, debilitating, and expensive
conditions like diabetes. This support is offered before pregnancy, during
28
Department for Education internal analysis of the National Pupil Database (see Page 38, The
Foundation Years).

pregnancy and for the first years of a child’s life. For example, there are a
range of early communication and literacy activities that support parents to
understand the importance of a good home learning environment and how
they can promote good language and literacy skills at home29
.
5.30 This approach is becoming well established and Leicestershire’s public health
leads have asked government to make local authorities the lead
commissioner of 0-5 services in the county, as opposed to national structures
such as the proposed NHS Commissioning Board. This will allow for the
greater integration of locally designed services.
5.31 Concentrating on the first years of a child’s life is logical as it shapes
behaviour - but it is also tactical. Parents with pre-school children have more
routine contact with public services, from GPs to mid-wives to health visitors
to Children’s centres, a child and their parent can, and many do, have regular
contact with a range of advice, support and networks.
Building a child’s capacity to learn: Improving school readiness
5.32 So, how do we respond to the above assertions about school readiness?
Studies inform us that 50% of children from socially disadvantaged
backgrounds have significant language delay on entry to school30
. There is a
strong link between communication difficulties and low attainment as well as
mental health issues, poor employment or training prospects and crime.
There is also increasing evidence from studies that have claimed that
increasing the physical activity levels of children aged 3-5 can lead to
increased academic achievement and improved cognitive function and better
behaviour31
.
5.33 In Leicestershire the attainment gap has narrowed between the bottom 20%
performing children and the rest, every year for the past 3 years32
. With the
right support, many children with language delay go on to catch up with their
peers, and most persistent disorders can be resolved by the age of five and a
half33
. This support should also include physical activity programmes and
speech and language therapy being targeted at those children’s centres or
through family support workers which deal with the county’s most
disadvantaged neighbourhoods and families.
29
For example the following schemes are being run - Chatterbabies, Chatterbox, Speak-a-Boo,
Bookstart, Wriggly Readers
30
http://www.c4eo.org.uk/themes/earlyintervention/files/early_intervention_grasping_the_nettle_fu
ll_report.pdf
31
Len Almond, British Heart Foundation
32
The gap currently stands at 28.3 points. Leicestershire is in line with the national average of 59% of
children developing well as measured by the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile.
33
Bishop D V M and Adams 1990. A Prospective Study of the Relationship Between Specific Language
Impairment, Phonological Disorders and Reading Retardation, Journal of Child Psychology and
Psychiatry 31

Improved physical and intellectual development of the child
Recommendation 6: Leicestershire’s commissioners should continue to
target speech and language development and physical activity programmes
in children under 5.
Case Study:Family Learning
“Our children begin school well below average in Communication, Language and
Literacy Development and we need our parents educated in the impact they have as their first
educators. The work that they go on to do with their children can put in valuable foundations before
they even begin school. They become more confident and help their children to be more confident and
by raising self esteem we feel that the children have better 'can do' attitudes to learning. We have
many hard to reach families and it is always very rewarding when we get these families on board”
A South Wigston Primary school where a course is held in the summer term for September starters.
Family Learning aims to help parents and carers to be more active in
supporting their children’s learning, including with families with pre-school
children to help parents explore ways of encouraging language development
through fun, practical activities.
In the spring of 2011, 25 partners were contacted, mainly schools, where
there had been substantial Family Literacy, Language and Numeracy (FLLN)
provision (e.g. 20 hours of learning) during the last two years. In 2009 -10
FLLN courses were run at 41 different venues.
Although it is too early to draw conclusions on longer term impact, a survey
of parents indicated very positive responses to the courses with 91% of
parents who participated now more active in the child’s education; 93%
more comfortable visiting schools and talking with teachers about their
child’s education.
Building a family’s capacity: the transition to school
5.34 Comprehensive support for families with children under five is a key focus for
prevention, support and early intervention. However, we feel that based on
the evidence of the practitioners we interviewed, this focus on the
foundation years would usefully extend to the first years at school.
5.35 The transition between early years settings (whether nursery, playgroup or
childminder) and primary school is a major milestone for all families but can
be a time of stress for families experiencing additional difficulties such as
poverty. For example, a parent’s own negative experience of school can
trigger anxiety for both parent and child and begin a process of
disengagement. This can ultimately result in a child’s low attendance and low
aspiration, one of the most significant indicators of a child’s likelihood to do

well at school. There is substantial evidence to suggest that the most
important indicator of future educational outcomes is a parent’s engagement
in the educational process.34
5.36 As well as this anxiety, there is also evidence at the other end of the
spectrum that parents can feel abandoned by the noticeable drop off in
support once a child reaches school age. The first year at school, like the first
five years of life, is a negotiation for all parents and a particularly fraught one
for those experiencing poverty. The relationship between school, teacher,
pupil, and parent is crucial for two reasons; to secure parental engagement
and also to help schools help families.
5.37 The quality and extent of information sharing between early years settings
and schools varies enormously but can have a significant impact on how well
the transition is managed both for child and parents. With stronger links
developed at these easily identifiable transition points more joined up
working could support vulnerable children during this stage. For example,
there are meetings which schools and their feeder early years settings are
invited to35
but not all attend and of course not all children attend a nursery
or child minder.
5.38 Parental relationship breakdown or bereavement can be a trigger for
emotional, educational and financial upheaval. This may occur at any point
during a childhood and for school age children it is likely that the effects will
be most noticeable in a school context. By establishing and developing
communication to support parental engagement at the most obvious point of
transition – starting school –may help establish a supportive relationship
which will be supportive when other, less predicatable changes and
transitions occur.
5.39 The capability and capacity of all staff to manage both this transition as well
as identify, advise and signpost a child or their parent who may have
undergone a significant change in their lives needs to be supported with
continued and further refined training and gudiance for all staff and
integration of working practices.
Managing the transition to school
Recommendation 7: Key staff from a variety of pre-school settings (nurseries,
childminders and children centres) as well as family outreach workers and
early communication support workers, will establish or continue to develop
productive relationships and practices with Early Years Foundation Stage
practitioners in schools in order to help parents manage a good transition into
school– preferably through a greater use of family learning projects.
34
Desforges, C. (2003) The Impact of Parental Involvement, Parental Support and Family Education on
Pupil Achievement and Adjustment: A literature review, DfES Research Report 433.
35
Early Years Foundation Stage Support Group meetings

Families with a disabled parent or child
Our needs assessment has highlighted the clear link between disability and
the higher risk of falling into financial difficulties. This is true both for families
who have a disabled child and families with a disabled parent and emphasises
the need for the whole family approach that this strategy proposes (see
recommendation 1).
All of the strategy’s recommendations should have a positive impact on
families with a disabled member. However there are specific
recommendations which should have a particular impact.
For example, further support can be achieved through ensuring that these
families access the benefits available to them. Children with Special
Educational Needs and Disabilities are able to access an extra 6 hours of
Nursery Education Funding while they are 3 and 4 years of age – parents need
to be aware of this provision at the right time so that they can make full use of
it. Staff need to be aware of this provision (see training recommendation 11).
The training programmes recommended by the strategy will need to include
an understanding of the particular issues a disabled family face. This will allow
the programmes we recommend around financial skills, diet, physical activity
and parental confidence to be of benefit to a family, irrespective of whether a
parent or child has a disability.
We are also asking public sector partners and commissioned providers to
consider how they might be able to help disabled young people or carers into
career opportunities (see recommendations 8&9 below).
Building a young person’s capacity; the transition to adulthood
Our aim
To increase the amount of 16-24 year olds who are participating in
education or employment.
5.40 Many of the young people who contributed to this needs assessment and
strategy may be parents themselves by 2020. To break the intergenerational
cycle of child poverty, we must aim to ensure that young people today have
the skills, confidence and opportunity to enter adulthood able to participate
in and enjoy relationships and work. This is a significant issue. There are 3235
16-24 year olds claming job seekers allowance in Leicestershire and Rutland -

a rise of 20.3% in the last year – compared to a 15.8% national average and
17.9% regional average36
.
5.41 Children in receipt of free school meals are more likely not to be in
employment or education between 16 and 18 years old37
. Continuing in
learning is linked to social and economic benefits. The priority is therefore
relatively clear – to increase the number of 17 and 18 year olds learning. The
Government’s recent Social Mobility Strategy has termed the period between
16 and 24 as the transition years and while this strategy’s emphasis is on
earlier intervention, it is not exclusively.
5.42 A number of new policy measures, still being formulated nationally will have
an impact on Leicestershire’s young people. The new government aims to
increase access to higher education, apprenticeships, and encourage young
people to participate in positive activities such as volunteering. For example
there is a new Work Experience programme where young people receiving
benefit and looking for permanent work can gain work experience to improve
their experience and employability with travel and childcare costs covered38
.
Changes in new policies and funding flows will mean that Leicestershire’s
schools, colleges, universities and the wider public sector will need to
respond to this change.
5.43 For example, Leicestershire’s children have on average £3,888 spent on them
each year. The new Pupil Premium will increase this by £400 or 10% for every
child who qualifies for free school meals in the county. This money will be
given directly to schools with the aim of reducing the disparities experienced
by these children.
5.44 Schools and the local authority need to establish how schools can best take
advantage of the financial freedoms being granted through the move to
academies and the pupil premium. Questions need to be asked of and by
schools as to how this money might be used most effectively by individual
schools and or emerging consortia which are supporting new academies.
5.45 The removal of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) was identified
by some of the young people we spoke with as part of this needs assessment
as a barrier to removing this disparity. Similarly, concerns have been
expressed with the changes to the funding of undergraduate tuition fees.
These changes have included a targeted Bursary fund which replaces the
EMA and is aiming to achieve a wider ring fence for those qualifying for
exemptions from university tuition fees. The desired impact of these changes
may not hit those in most need – those essentially who we count as
experiencing child poverty – but the perception of both policies may well be
36
Unemployment by Constituency, November 2011, House of Commons RESEARCH PAPER 11/74 16
November 2011
37
See Page 39, Leicestershire’s Child Poverty Needs Assessment
38
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/policy/welfare-reform/get-britain-working/#experience

different. Nationally, also, the government are committed to supporting an
additional 60,000 places in further education (16-18) between now and 2015
(this translates crudely to about 750 extras places for Leicestershire).
5.46 The Government is also lending its support to a far wider take-up of
apprenticeships - 360,000 places will be offered government nationally
(4,500 in Leicestershire). Already Leicestershire is benefiting from a scheme
run by the construction company, Caterpillar, with 675 apprenticeships being
recruited over the next three years.
5.47 The proposals around pupil premiums and apprenticeships are still being
refined at a national level, but they will be defined, ultimately, locally - in our
schools and in our workplaces. The fabric of these reforms are designed to
enable decisions to be made away from Whitehall and closer to those who
they will directly affect.
5.48 However, there is a need to ensure that these new opportunities are taken
up, successful and targeted effectively. The city and county’s new Local
Enterprise Partnership – a partnership led by businesses working closely with
local councils and other partners - need to lead on ensuring the take up of
apprenticeships in the county. Partnerships such as those embarked upon
between Caterpillar and a further education college are needed more widely
in the county.
Training opportunities for 16-24 year olds
Recommendation 8: This strategy recommends that through the Leicester
and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership work experience and
apprenticeship opportunities for childern are developed.
These opportunities will be designed by the young people peer research
group alongside private and voluntary sector partners so that they enable a
young person to take up a long term employment or training opportunity
Public Sector Apprenticeships
Young carers aged 16-19 recently did not want to get trapped in what they
perceived to be the cycle of deprivation their families live in. Many really
wanted to attend and attain but felt their life circumstances were conspiring
against them and agencies were not flexible and understanding.
Barnardo’s Carefree for Young Carers
5.49 However, as we adjust and respond to this new climate and the opportunities
these new initatives may offer, those organisations in Leicestershire who are
responsible for spending the public’s money, are in a position to more
directly assist – especially those who we know either do not or can not take
advantage of these opportunities, who will sometimes become ‘trapped into
a cycle of deprivation.’.

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