Agenda item

1.  To brief the Health and Wellbeing board as The Connecting Families programme comes to the end of the first year of operation for the team and to advise about the last year 2014/15 of phase one and progress made to date.

2.  To give an update about phase 2 (a new five year programme 2015 to 2020) and brief the board about the suggested new criteria, especially those linked to health.

The Chairman invited Paula Bromley (Connecting Families Manager) to introduce the report.

The Board made the following comments:

The Chairman highlighted complexity of work with families who had been involved from the start of the programme.  The Chairman congratulated Paula Bromley and her team on a successful outcome of the programme so far.  The Chairman asked Pamela Bromley if she had seen any blockages in the programme and whether it could be something that the Board could help with.  The Chairman also asked how other organisations, such as Job Centre Plus and/or Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), had been interacting with the programme.

Councillor Dine Romero asked if the Council’s Connecting Families Programme had been seen, by the Government, on shaping the national agenda considering the successful outcome of the programme so far.  Councillor Romero also said that she was pleased that this programme would continue, in more-less the same formula as it was happening so far, beyond the next national and local elections.

Pat Foster commented that it would be interesting to see the phase 2 of the programme and how mental health and physical health issues would be included.  Pat Foster asked about geographic spread of families which had been participating in the programme.

Paula Bromley responded that she would be happy to work with the Healthwatch.  Paula Bromley also said that families were spread across the area, and not just to a specific ‘pocket’ or Ward in the area.  Services were not accessible for some areas because they were not there, or those services were far away from those families. 

Paula Bromley said that working with the Job Centre Plus and DWP had been slightly difficult, though with some good outcomes which had helped the programme to become successful.

Jo Farrar commented that she was pleased with the programme which engaged families who found it hard to work with the Council in the past.  The Council had been receiving constant positive feedback from the Government and this was all down to Paula Bromley and her team, who built strong relationship with a range of partners, with tendency to engage with more health service partners.

John Holden asked if there were any ways of measuring societally value of the programme and if it would possible to achieve more for less in this programme.

Paula Bromley responded that the programme had been working quite well with health visitors and other health services, with a prospect to develop stronger links with more services which would benefit the programme. 

Paula Bromley also said that the team had been using some sort of mapping process in evaluating progress.  The government just developed a new cost benefit analysis tool, which could be tailored locally.

Paula Bromley commented that everyone would have to be clear what the set outcomes were in terms of what the Council wanted and what the families were encouraged to achieve.  Also, work in partnership with other people and organisations had been crucial.

Bruce Laurence commented that this was quite impressive work.  Bruce Laurence also said that this programme would be a challenge for the Board.

Ian Biggs also praised the work of Paula Bromley and her team.

Ashley Ayre said that measuring the benefits had been one of the biggest challenges to the Council. 

Ashley Ayre also said that phase 2 of the programme would need to include existing services and how this programme would engage with health services.

Ashley Ayre praised the work done by Paula Bromley and the team, and highlighted programme’s progress so far considering that there was a slow start of its implementation.

It was RESOLVED to note the report.

The Board also passed their thanks to the Connecting Families Team for the excellent work so far.  The Board offered to assist the Connecting Families Team if they needed any help in future.