24 November 2009

Marnie Caton, Head of Information & Performance

Children’s Services

Child Poverty Innovation Pilot

London Child Poverty Network

Child Poverty in Islington

• Index of Child Well-being 2009 – Islington 4th worst local authority after Liverpool, Tower Hamlets and Manchester

• Measured as number of children in households on out of work benefits, Islington remains second worst in UK

• Number of children living below 60% median income cannot be measured at LA level – however, local data shows over 92% of children in households claiming HB/CTB are in poverty

More about children and families

On average a baby is born every 3 hours to an Islington mum There are 40,000 children in IslingtonThere are 23,000 families with children1 in 10 children live in overcrowded conditions43% children live in a lone parent household.The most popular boys and girls names for children born in

2008 were Thomas and Chloe40% of Islington’s secondary age children go outside of the

borough to schoolSeveral families in Islington have 8 or more children1 in every 2 children live in a home owned by the local authority45% + children are living in workless households

CP Innovation Pilot – what are we doing?Integrated working

Working through universal settings where families are – Children’s Centres first

Integrated team of specialists: Benefits; childcare; trainers; employment; JCP; information/libraries

Strengthened the economic domain in CAF and IW training

Mainstreaming Make progress on child poverty sustainable within

mainstream services – it’s everybody’s business

Use of data Bringing Housing Benefit/Council tax data together with child

dataset Intelligent use of data through universal settings and team

Integrated working

(Children’s Services) integrated working approach:

• Think family!• Improved outcomes for children• Early intervention• common assessment – needs, actions,

outcomes• Share information• Multi-agency teams in universal and specialist

settings

Why not apply approach more broadly?

Mainstreaming• To impact child poverty after the pilot we need to embed the way

we do interventions in frontline services across agencies:– Housing– Health– Adult social care– Children’s Services– Regeneration– Employers / Business– VCF Sector

• To provide personalised services through which “someone with a disability, low skills and child care needs can easily access support to help them manage their health condition at work, in training or childcare” – National Audit Office

Use of data

• Started with concept of ‘whole child’ – 2006• Now concept of ‘whole family’• Built from a number of sources (10)• Sharing agreements required• Use for a large number of projects and

ongoing needs assessment & commissioning work– CPIP is one of these projects

Our approach to using data

• Developed now to hold data at household level

• Use Unique Property Ref (LLPG) to link records

• Plan to add more data from health• Automating into a data warehouse

CPIP – how we use the data

• Regular extract of HB and CTB data (monthly)• Match to child data set• Create our large client base list - focus on families

with 0-4 year olds and lone parents of 0-7 year olds• Some 3,560 households, with 9,650 children• Mapped to Children’s Centre catchment areas• Prioritised some centres – need and readiness

Criteria for rollout of pilot

• Shortlist 7 children’s centres and surrounding areas

• Capacity of Children’s Centre

• Number of target individuals in area

• Potential partners already engaged

• Current employment projects active

Children’s Centre summary data1.1 Reach by Children's Centre 2009/10Example Children's Centre

Families

Number % Number % Number % Number % Number %

Families seen since April who live in this catchment area and have attended this childrens centre

201 # 50 27% 35 26% 47 35% 14 16% 2 11%

Families seen since April who live in this catchment area but have only attended other centres

8 4 2% 2 1% 3 2% 6 7% 0 0%

Families seen before April who live in the borough 68 18 10% 14 10% 17 13% 10 11% 2 11%

Families registered at some point but never seen 26 9 5% 8 6% 8 6% 16 18% 5 28%

Families never registered or used services 182 103 56% 77 57% 59 44% 44 49% 9 50%

Total number of families with children in this catchment area 485 184 38% 136 28% 134 28% 90 19% 18 4%

Reach = (familes inside the borough over the total in the borough) 41%

Families seen since April who live out of the borough 178 - - - - -

Families seen since April who live outside of this catchment area1 421 - - - - -

Families seen since April who live in this catchment area and have attended this childrens centre without their children2

29 - - - - -

Potential Target? 60% 50% 60% 40% 80%

number in target group 110 68 80 36 14

achievement against target 45% 51% 58% 39% 14%

number to target 60 33 33 22 12

Families on Housing Benefit

Families on Income Support

Live in LA accomodation

Families headed by lone parent

Target Ethnicity: Somali

How we use this data

• CCs action plan to address their reach• Track how they are doing• Work with Islington Working for Parents team

(who also have data) to decide how to work with specific groups in detail

• Data forms basis of case management system used by IWfP and other IW practitioners and income maximisation team

Frontline service contacts(Children’s Centres – housing providers – Adult

Social Care etc.)

Pro-active outreach(PST)

Intelligence from HB/CTB

(data protocol team)

Screening assessment and triage

Level 1Advice

Level 2Advice & support

(assistance with 1 or 2 functions)

Level 3Employability pathway

Provision of existing and new information items

Active referral to existing services

Referral to PST six month employability support

package

TRACK – RCP db(Modified Regeneration tracking system)

Monitor and confirm through HB/CTB

(data protocol team)

Schedule level 1, 2 & 3 participants and non-participants for follow up and progression(data protocol team)

Non-engagers

Evaluation

Monitoring & Evaluation

• The regularly refreshed data-set will provide the background data for monitoring

• Do not need to ask clients for their data several times

• Aim to track through the RCP data base, but also through existing systems – e.g. children’s centres EYMIS

Indicators & measures for national evaluation

Indicator Tool/measure

Increase in parents reporting a contribution to Increase in parents reporting a contribution to job retention or progressionjob retention or progression

Number of parents reporting a contribution to Number of parents reporting a contribution to job retention or progressionjob retention or progression

Parents show increases in wellbeing and skills Parents show increases in wellbeing and skills as measured by outcomes staras measured by outcomes star

Number of parents with increased confidence Number of parents with increased confidence to seek work and other soft outcomesto seek work and other soft outcomes(to be disaggregated when final version of (to be disaggregated when final version of assessment tool agreed)assessment tool agreed)

Increasing in parents acquiring skills or Increasing in parents acquiring skills or accredited qualificationaccredited qualification

Number of parents who have completed a Number of parents who have completed a training programme (state for what)training programme (state for what)(Possibly measured using outcomes star).(Possibly measured using outcomes star).

Indicators and measures

Indicator Tool/measure

Front line staff training needs analysis completed and actioned

Training needs identified and appropriate training delivered Y/N

Increase in public service staff able to identify families in poverty and carry out appropriate screening for pathway support

Number of staff trained to carry out initial screening assessment / identify child poverty

Target number of parents with need for Target number of parents with need for employability pathway (800 over 2 years) employability pathway (800 over 2 years)

Number of parents who start and number who Number of parents who start and number who complete the agreed pathway complete the agreed pathway

Parents with employability support needs and Parents with employability support needs and level of engagement assessed (against the level of engagement assessed (against the number of parents identified by Islington number of parents identified by Islington baseline data) baseline data)

Number of parents who have undergone an Number of parents who have undergone an initial screening assessment initial screening assessment

Outcomes Star

• Used for the 6 month employability package

• A way of tracking a parents’ journey

• Easy to see progress• Easy to see improved progress on

some ‘domains’ than others• Not too complex for client• Proven track record in other

organisations (St. Mungo’s, Camden)

Completed Outcomes Star

Reporting

• More complex potentially

• From RCP about clients in the pathway

• From Income maximisation / benefits systems for level 2 support

• From EYMIS for CC interevention

More work in progress!