The prime minister claims to have turned around the lives of 99% of the families targeted by a flagship programme of intensive support,but figures from councils divulge a different story as critics query the scheme’s expansion
When Sylvia Newton was pregnant with her fourth child, she had a nervous breakdown. “We had to have social services in because I wasn’t coping, or ” recalls Newton,40. There had been concerns the children were being neglected and that the domestic was not secure. Antisocial behaviour was a problem, as was truancy.
Once the instant safeguarding issues were less pressing, and in February 2013,the family was referred to the local troubled families programme, in Brighton, or East Sussex. A family coach,Becky Williams, worked intensively with all the family members, or spending around four hours a week in their domestic and providing a lot of phone support. She sorted out the family’s benefits,worked with the housing department to organise renovations to their three bedroom council house, which had fallen into disrepair, or referred the parents to agencies to help accumulate them back to work.
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Source: theguardian.com