Contact: Janet Féat Telephone 01962 847183 email address; [email protected]

1 Summary

1.1 This report details the progress with the introduction, on a phased basis, of the Family Mentoring Service which was submitted to the Social Care Policy Review Committee on 30 March 2005 and to the Children's Services Policy Review Committee on 12 July 2005.

1.2 The Children's Services Department is working in partnership with a local and a national voluntary organisation (the Portsmouth Diocesan Council for Social Responsibility and Barnardo's) to provide a Family Mentoring Service to start in the south east of Hampshire in early 2006.

1.3 The development of family mentoring supports the County Council's corporate aims, in particular its priority for improving the quality of life for children in need (Aim 1 of the Corporate Strategy), for building strong and safe communities (Aim 4) and for improving services (Aim 5).

1.4 The Family Mentoring service, in providing help and support to families to enable them to promote healthy choices, offer safe, stable homes, support learning and promote positive behaviour, directly supports four of the five aims set out for Children's Services in the Children Act 2004, Section 10 (2). See also Appendix 1.

2 Implementation

2.1 In the context of Family Mentoring, it is important to note that the Home-Start schemes throughout Hampshire are already effectively providing family mentoring services to families with children under 5 years old, and the addition of the Family Mentoring Service, initially in the south east of the county, is not planned to deprive any existing schemes of their funding

2.2 Work has been continuing between the partners which has included the appointment to a post to coordinate the Family Mentoring project, initially for the first year. Interviews were held on 31 October, and an appointment made. The original timeline drawn up for the scheme has been amended (Appendix 2) and the post start date is 12 December.

2.3 A first draft of the Partnership Agreement, and the business plan/timeline (as above) are being negotiated between the partners.

2.4 An outcomes framework has been drafted (Appendix 1), linking the Family Mentoring scheme desired outcomes with Barnardo's outcomes framework and the five outcomes in the Children Act 2004, with the details of data collection awaiting confirmation.

3 Financial implications

3.1 Funding for Children's Services element of the Family Mentoring scheme is to come from within the existing Family Support budget (£12,500 for 2005/06 as a result of the delay in the appointment of the Children's Services Manager, and £25k for 2006/07), redirected in order to ensure focus on the new arrangements.

3.2 Funding for this scheme is benefiting from partnership with voluntary organisations in receipt of Government development grants: from Barnardo's, funding of £25k has been confirmed, and negotiations with another voluntary organisation for possible funding of the future roll out of Family Mentoring across the county has begun. The Portsmouth Diocesan Council for Social Responsibility will provide an office base and utilities for the Children's Services Manager and the administrator.

4 Personnel implications

4.1 None.

5 Impact assessment

5.1 Race and equality impact assessment has been considered in the development of this report and no adverse impact has been identified.

Recommendations

1 Recommendation: that the Executive Member for Children's Services continues to receive future reports on the progress of the Family Mentoring scheme and any related development proposals.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background documents

The following documents discuss facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and have been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB: the list excludes

1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

List documents here or type `none'.