The Children’s Centre has been awarded funding for a project to help families, predominantly those with young children, overcome a range of social problems. The Manx Lottery Trust, as delegated partner of Big Lottery Fund UK, has awarded extended term funding, over a 30-month period, for the Thriving Families project which aims to demonstrate that investing early into vulnerable families will have measurable social and economic benefits. Thriving Families focuses on ‘early intervention’ - providing expert help for families to confront and overcome problems at the earliest possible stage in order to prevent those problems having more serious, long-term, effects on the whole family.
There is a growing body of research on this type of project indicating that a relatively small investment in resources and funding at an early stage can produce significant social and economic benefits for the whole community. In bidding for the funding, The Children’s Centre made reference to the Swindon ‘LIFE’ Project, a programme similar to that of Thriving Families. Statistics show that the Swindon project produced a significant social return on the investment made. For every ?1 invested the project provided ?7.60 worth of benefit to the community.
The Manx Lottery Trust funding for Thriving Families will include the provision of a Link Worker - Janet Bailey - who will be the primary point of contact for 12 families who have been identified as being vulnerable or struggling to cope. An indication of this would be their children’s poor attendance at school, or ongoing health issues in one or more members of the family. Janet will work closely with a number of other agencies, such as health services and schools, to provide the support and advice the family needs to overcome the challenges they face. Since Janet has worked for The Children’s Centre for several years, latterly as its Parenting Manager, she is well placed to make use of the charity’s internal resources such as the Community Farm and Parenting Programmes. The role of the Link Worker is to ‘walk in the shoes’ of families to see the problems and challenges they face from the inside, to understand the dynamics of the family, and by doing so offer practical help and support. But the role is also about authoritatively challenging the family to change. Janet said:
“This project is an exciting and innovative way to attempt to ensure that families are supported to enable their children to reach their full potential. With sustained and consistent input, my hope is that the families we work with will at best overcome, or at least manage, the socio-economic problems that impede their ability to flourish.”
John Knight, Chief Executive, The Children’s Centre, said:
“Thriving Families will be a demonstration project, in that it will be constantly and consistently evaluated by The Children’s Centre, as well as being independently
evaluated by an academic, rigorous outcomes analysis. Proving its effectiveness will help us to influence potential funders to support an expansion of the programme.”
Photo - Janet Bailey
