Work ongoing towards Family Intervention Project

The Government today announced that they have reached their target under the Respect Action Plan of having more than 50 areas signed up to introducing Family Intervention Projects.

Wirral committed itself to establishing the project when it became a Respect Action Area in January this year. Wirral’s Anti-Social Behaviour Team has been working on identifying families who might benefit from the types of interventions the project could offer and is currently working in partnership with National Children’s Homes (NCH), the Youth Offending Team and the Children and Young People’s Department of Wirral Council to recruit staff and launch the Family Intervention Project here.

Work is underway in Wirral to establish a Family Intervention Project in the borough to tackle the most troublesome anti-social behaviour in a positive and supportive manner.

Family Intervention Projects work with the most difficult families in an area, those whose behaviour has a huge negative effect on a community. The project takes a dual-pronged approach - intensive support balanced with enforcement action where necessary - to effectively turn around the anti-social behaviour of the families and bring peace to communities.

The projects tackle the underlying causes of families' anti-social behaviour, whether that is inadequate parenting, drug or alcohol misuse, domestic violence or worklessness, providing a longer-term and more sustainable solution to the problem.

Wirral’s Director of Regeneration, Alan Stennard, said: “Wirral’s Family Intervention Project aims to tackle anti-social behaviour by working with families in a structured way; using the risk of sanction to encourage their involvement and participation.

“Projects can offer families three different levels of support; the first tier is an Outreach Support Service for families who are currently subject to or are likely to be subject to enforcement measures. This level of support involves contact with the family of approximately 10 hours per week.

“Families with an established pattern of anti-social behaviour, will receive between 15 to 20 hours of outreach support through the provision of a number of dispersed tenancies.

“In the longer term, the very small number of families who need intensive support and supervision, may be offered accommodation in a residential unit that will offer a structured home environment and provide intensive support and supervision.”

Family intervention schemes already established in other areas have been posting some impressive results – for more than four out of five (85%) families, complaints about anti-social behaviour ceased or reduced and in nine out of ten (92%) the risk to local communities was assessed as having either reduced or ceased completely by the time families left the project.

Alan Stennard added: “The provision of outreach support and support through dispersed tenancies in Wirral is currently being developed in partnership with NCH. The demand for a core residential unit within Wirral is being investigated further. These projects are cost-effective as they target scarce resources in the areas where they are most needed.”

Ends

Press release issued: April 11 2007