ESF-Works held a workshop at the 2011 Welfare to Work conference in Manchester on 30 June 2011, which included presentations by John Bell, ESF-Works Policy Editor and Mandy Thomas, Project Lead at NIACE, and discussions on the issues facing families with multiple problems and how the new ESF families provision is addressing these.

Families with multiple problems are at the forefront of policy makers’ - and the public’s - mind as never before. The coalition government has put working with the 120,000 most challenging families at the top of its agenda, with the creation of a Troubled Families team in the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and a route towards employment central to the ambition of making a real difference. With ESF now supporting work directly with families for the first time, ESF Works led a workshop at the 2011 Welfare to Work Convention, to survey the key issues for practice, highlight innovative practice, and capture the wisdom of the audience.

The report summarises the key background issues and how these have shaped the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) ambitions for its new ESF families provision, before going on to examine key challenges for practice. These include the sheer complexity of the issues facing families and the web of services and interventions they experience; the fragility of the trust which needs to be at the heart of effective employment focused work; and the capacity of the Employment services sector to deploy the skills and numbers of professionals needed. Practice examples featured include the Swindon based Life programme, and Tomorrow's People's families initiative in Maidstone.

Dialogue within the audience threw up a wide range of insights but also areas of concern, including barriers in the current intervention infrastucture; the central importance - but scarcity - of effective partnership working between agencies; and professional skills needs. The recognition of the need to identify and work towards intermediate steps to employment was widely welcomed, but with real worries about how this will be converted into expectations and indicators. Download the full workshop report.