The Families First Partnership (FFP) programme aims to transform how support for families is delivered across England. This includes implementing Family Help and multi-agency child protection reforms and increasing support for family networks.
As Assistant Director for Family Help, Care and Protection within Norfolk Children’s Services, I am passionate about transforming our work to promote positive outcomes for children and families whilst ensuring all practitioners feel valued, respected and their skills recognised. Over the years, my involvement across services, local communities and professionals has deepened my appreciation for models that prioritise both prevention and partnership.
With this perspective, I am delighted to share Norfolk’s Family Help model, an approach that continues to shape our journey towards more responsive, inclusive family support.
What is Norfolk’s Family Help model?
Norfolk’s model is built on the principles of early intervention, partnership, and co-production. Its foundation rests on the belief that when families are empowered and listened to, their strengths become the driving force for change. By focusing on prevention, we aim to reduce the need for statutory intervention and create opportunities for families to thrive. For children who do require protection, we are well equipped to do so in a timely, and proportionate way.
Our model is not a fixed service, but a dynamic framework shaped by ongoing learning and collaboration. We have invested in creating the infrastructure for multi-disciplinary and multi-agency working system-wide, sharing knowledge and resources to create a network that is tailored to families’ needs and sustainable for a family to thrive. Through this team around a family, our focus extends beyond direct intervention. It focuses on centering family decision-making, ownership of plans and empowering practitioners to be creative in their work with families.
The Family Help approach recognises that challenges are complex and multifaceted; from financial hardship to disability, mental health needs, or housing insecurity. Rather than offering a one-size-fits-all solution, we tailor support to each family’s context, maximizing our use of resource across the system. Our ethos is to treat every family with dignity, respect, and a belief in their ability to effect change.
Supporting partnership and collaboration
By bringing together practitioners from across disciplines, we establish a cohesive team around each family, ensuring that no one works in isolation. This approach leverages the skills and expertise found within our network, fostering an environment where children are supported and protected at every step. Our focus on shared responsibility means every professional contributes to the overall wellbeing and safety of the family. It also ensures that newly qualified practitioners, or those joining our teams, have access to the expertise of colleagues and specialists within our system.
The Family Help team comprises social workers, family practitioners, domestic abuse workers, and intensive support workers. Additionally, families benefit from the investment we have made into wraparound support, including therapeutic services, youth specialists, housing support and crisis outreach workers.
Allocation meetings are a critical part of our process, where the team gathers to review referrals and assess the specific circumstances of each family. During these meetings, practitioners discuss the family then identify the most suitable lead practitioner to coordinate support. The lead practitioner acts as the primary point of contact, facilitating communication among professionals and with the family, ensuring that interventions are tailored.
A core feature of our model is the opportunities it creates for professional development. We have built a model which insists on partnership and collaboration between managers, practitioners and heads of service regardless of their professional background or qualifications. Ensuring Family Help is a place where anyone joining the team can build a lifelong career is something that I am very proud of.
How we work: key elements of the model
- Early identification. Using well-established pathways, families can access support before challenges escalate. This includes drop-in community hubs, outreach workers, and close links with schools and health settings.
- Collaboration. Practitioners work alongside families, not as experts dictating solutions, but as partners co-designing interventions. Our training emphasises listening, empathy, and empowering conversations and we strive to see the voice of children and family ownership come through in family plans.
- Learning partnership. Through regular engagement and reflective practice, we share learning and keep our approach evidence-informed. Peer reviews, evaluations, audits and feedback from families and partners help ensure transparency and drive continuous improvement so we welcome these.
- Whole-family focus. Instead of addressing challenges in isolation, we adopt an approach that considers the needs and goals of all family members encouraging them to devise their own solutions. Our practice centres on promoting family-led plans and Family Group Decision Making, which are fundamental to our methodology.
- Multi-disciplinary and multi-agency approach. We have invested in creating the infrastructure for multi-disciplinary and multi-agency working system-wide, including our joint approach to all children's casework supervision. Our focus on a whole team supporting a family, rather than a single lead practitioner in isolation results in a shared approach to intervention, challenge and decision-making.
- Accessible support. Services are designed to be non-stigmatising and welcoming, engaging families from all backgrounds, ethnicities and circumstances.
- Access to expert support. We have created a number of expert manager roles in our model focusing on court work, child protection and interventions. All practitioners engage with these specialists to ensure we are maximizing best practice.
Impact and reflections
Since implementing our model, we have witnessed steady progress in how families engage with support and take ownership of their journey. Many have expressed increased confidence and satisfaction with services received. We have also adapted quickly to new challenges, including the impacts of reform, including the FFP.
Following an Ofsted inspection in February 2026, Norfolk Children's Services was graded as outstanding across all five categories. The report, published in May, highlighted the successful implementation of the Family Help model:
Children in Norfolk receive consistently strong services that impact positively on their and their families’ lives. Since the previous inspection in November 2022, leaders have relentlessly continued to strengthen and enhance practice for children, young people and families. Inspirational strategic and operational leadership, alongside child-centred corporate and political support, has enabled the council to further embed its shared partnership framework Flourish, which captures what is most important to children and young people. Partners’ confidence and commitment to this strategy have enabled a high-quality, collaborative and integrated system of support for children. The implementation of the family help model has successfully brought together targeted early help and statutory services in multidisciplinary teams. Consequently, children and families receive seamless coordinated support and effective safeguarding services, reducing the likelihood of more intrusive intervention.
Of course, challenges remain and diversity of needs means we must strive to be flexible, inclusive and reflective. However, our commitment to continuous improvement, grounded in the lived experiences of families and practitioners, ensures that our model remains dynamic and relevant.
Our vision is to see every family empowered and equipped to navigate life’s challenges, through accessible, compassionate, and effective support. I am incredibly proud of our transformation and also excited by the opportunities to come. I invite you to join the conversation, share your experiences, and become a part of this partnership for positive change.
Supporting you, your team and organisation
Research in Practice was delighted to work as a learning partner with the team at Norfolk to support the development of their model.
We are a leading provider delivering research and evaluation services to enable the monitoring of the quality, impact and value of services. Working collaboratively with individual organisations, as well as local and national partnerships.
Contact our team to discuss the support you need.
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