Vulnerable families in North East Lincolnshire are set to benefit from a million pound project aimed at transforming children’s social care, thanks to funding from the Department for Education announced today.

The £1m funding will be used by North East Lincolnshire Council to overhaul their child protection system to create a more effective way of working with families on the edge of crisis and helping them to thrive.

The scheme will also support social workers to develop specialist skills, increase expertise in crucial areas and build stronger working relationships with specialists from other disciplines.

The funding will help social workers to provide the right support and care for the child in the wider context of their family environment – ensuring all children get the support they need to succeed, no matter their background or starting point in life.

Children and Families Minister, Edward Timpson, said:

“This innovative programme will deliver real results for North East Lincolnshire’s vulnerable children and families by focusing on the things that really matter and placing them at the heart of decision making.

“Having worked as a family lawyer in the care system for over a decade, I have seen time and time again how ensuring vulnerable families have the specialist help and support they need – when they need it – can help transform their lives, and I’m hugely excited to see what this venture achieves.”

The scheme is one of the latest projects that have successfully bid for money through the government’s Innovation Programme.

The Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme – backed by funding worth £100 million – aims to kick start the most promising proposals for new ways of providing children’s social care, such as supporting young people leaving care and taking their first steps into adulthood or looking at new bespoke services such as FGM prevention.

The government’s Innovation Programme focuses on two key target areas – fresh ways of working in children’s social work and better support for young people in or on the edge of care. Exciting proposals that have successfully secured funding to date include:

• the roll-out of a new project aimed at creating homes-from-homes for families on the edge of crisis – from befriending and providing much needed help for struggling or isolated parents, to offering a safe space for the night to children and young people when there is a family crisis or their home life is proving too much to bear;
• the expansion of a project which helps women who have had successive children taken into care by interrupting repeat pregnancies and giving them a chance to turn their lives around;
• a new programme to overhaul the entire child protection systems of five councils across the country, which will prioritise frontline work with vulnerable families over form-filling and needless bureaucracy.