Cornerstone of Brown's speech given by New Charter

A headline in the Prime Minister’s speech to the Labour Party conference this afternoon was forged after listening to New Charter’s experience.

Gordon Brown promised strong action on problem families who terrorise their neighbours and “let their kids run riot”. He announced extra funding to roll out Family Intervention Projects (FIPs) to address the country's 50,000 most difficult families over the coming five years.

The Prime Minister invited New Charter’s Group Chief Executive Ian Munro to 10 Downing Street ten days ago to talk about his organisation’s experience of running Cornerstone, one of the first Family Intervention Projects.

Ian Munro said: “We have no more cases to deal with than other parts of the country, but we resolved almost three years ago to try different approaches. I was able to show the Prime Minister that as well as tackling some of the trickiest family problems successfully, it could also save public money. For around £15,000 of government cash from the Department for Children, Schools and Families, we can avoid the estimated £300,000 of public resources it costs to deal with some of the families which cause the most difficulty in neighbourhoods.

“I agree with the Prime Minister’s statement that Family Intervention Projects are about help for those prepared to change and proper penalties for those who don’t.

“We are getting results, but I caution everyone that this is not quick or easy work. We are dealing with complex and deep-seated behaviours, and agencies need to show long- term commitment to FIPs.”

The main aims of the Family Intervention Project are to stop the anti-social behaviour of families and address youth crime, restoring safety to their homes and to the wider community. But the project also tackle the causes of poor behaviour which involve issues such as drug and alcohol misuse, poor health, domestic violence, unemployment and debt.

Cornerstone aims to work with perpetrators to discover and change the underlying reasons for the bad behaviour. Some families are removed from the neighbourhoods and live elsewhere while comprehensive work is done by New Charter and its key partner, Action for Children.
www.newcharter.co.uk