The Government's new 'Family Troubleshooters' plan: what do you think?

[HelenMumsnet]

Hello.

We've been asked by the BBC what Mumsnetters think of the Government's plans to set up a new network of "family troubleshooters" who will be paid to help turn around the lives of problem families.

The idea is that these troubleshooters would work with these families and be given targets to meet, such as helping the parents to work, stopping them from drinking or taking drugs, and/or ensuring the children go to school and do not behave anti-socially.

Prime Minister David Cameron says that appointing a single troubleshooter for each family is now "crucial" as problem families can currently be visited by up to 28 different public-sector workers - none of whom may have the chance to see or work with the family unit as a whole.

So, what do you think of this plan? Do please tell...

I don't think linking daily mail articles is a good idea, its like linking news of the world articles about moral fortitude.

These kind of policies are a bullshit stunt: we gave away our industrial prowess in exchange for cheep mobilephones and wide screen tv's so that we could be "comfy" on unemployment and shit wages (till the pound, euro and dollar collapses). all you muppets who voted thatcher, then blair, then foolishly voted Lib/dem thinking it would make a difference are to blame (but not really your fault, we have been programmed to think eaton is the only place politicians are from). Praise be to indonesia with its £3 wage limit so we can have our stuffed toys, cheap phones, guitars, cars, and by the way, they can have the industrial diseases we used to have........

clearly, this is just another bullshit political stunt aimed straight at the daily mail readers who slavishly tubthump about welfare, imigrants, and other borderline bnp rants.... Using the tardis to kill thatcher (blair, and all other "never had a real frikin job" politicians) at birth is the only solution, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and "those who would run for political office would never deserve, those how deserve would never run" (socrates) etc etc.

only jobs will save britain, only jobs will cure this problem, but I fear, my friends, this ship sailed out of swan hunters shipyard, (ironically, finished by polish ship builders because local talent had gone) and its never ever coming back.

get used to generation after generation of unemployment, lowered standerds of living till at last, at long last, the daily wage in indonesia and china is finaly higher than ours, and then, maybe, just maybe, we might be despirate enough for some industry and maybe even some hard work....until then, crime, poverty, and sheer desperation will reign. its a shame...

Santa/satan, i think I owe you a smoke, and I hear you. this is all crap. JOBS and everyone PAYING TAXES (especially the rich) leads to a better services and a moral and fair society, NOT policing those who have nothing and no resources or who are disabled. Troubled families would not exist if everyone in britain had a job or a future. those of you inside the m25 employment bubble (or other fantasy lands in theUK where employment is well above national average) should come to newcastle and scotland to see the 30 years of post thatcher desolation and destruction, or, if not, shut the f up. you clearly do not know what you are talking about. we did not ask for this kind of future, but we sure as hell got it.

you just cant judge families that are so marginalized by government policies of the past and then attempt to "fix" them with rehtoric from the present. its just insanity. Please please make it clear to this government that only employment will fix this problem.

This is a fucking joke.

The Minister Louise Casey - who hates Local Government anyway - has written to all councils with sketchy details of this 'plan'.

The 'plan' in reality is barely funded, with Local Government picking up 60% of the costs out of its existing scarce resources for social services, and Government only putting in 40% when individual families are 'proved' to have been sorted out.

Nasty, duplicitous spin from the Coalition.

Our local autism family support worker has been made redundant in a borough where there 500 families have a diagnosed kid (average age of higher functioning diagnosis is 12!). Only those families with a diagnosis could use her services - meaning many as old as 11-15 couldn't access her depsite considerable behavioral difficulties.

Many of these families are thrown into poverty by the failures of the health/education system making it impossible for them to work. Poverty brings it's own issues (unable to repair the broken boiler, unable to afford the special diet a child needs, homelessness caused by inability to pay the mortgage etc).

At any given time a sizaable minority of these children are unable to access school and it can take 18 months and an expensive court case to get them back into education via the current sen system. Not all parents have the resorces for the sen tribunal system, or to pay for private diagnosis and therapies/education.

Due to a deliberate late diagnosis policy, to save short term funding, parents are often blamed by education and social services for their child's behavior. A A CP investigation by ss is a common tactiic to put parents of gong to educational tribunal or generally "making a fuss" in my borough. The combination of not being able to work, caring unsupported for a child with a serious disability, poverty and constantly fghting the "system" for basic things like an education for ther child then drives many Mums to depression.
By the time the child is diagnosed @ 12 things have gone too far to help many familes and children.

I only "know" what goes on in one borough and with one disability but fail to see how Cameron's policy is going to help these desperate families in any way. At most it'll be a sticking plaster on a grand canyon of health and educational service failures.

glad to see maypole's comment was deleted.

I just can't see that a family that feels singled out as being rubbish is going to feel like cooperating with an 'expert' who they will probably feel doesn't really know what it is like to live in their situation. It could make them resistant to change! If we want to know what should be done, I wonder if it would be useful for the government to do a survey where they actually ask families living in difficult circumstances what they feel would help them?

My suggestion was that they train up people from poorer areas, who know the families they are helping and the situations they are in.
The scheme would be far more successful that way, as families would be more open to advice from someone who can identify with them, it would also bring training and jobs to people from poorer backgrounds who are willing to train up as troubleshooters.

inmysparetime - that was what surestart did. tried to do exactly that. unfortunately their funding has been slashed and then PR stunts like this announced.