PCD 1575 Parent Carer Champion Network extension

PCD 1575 Parent Carer Champion Network extension

The Violence Reduction Unit’s parenting and families work focuses on developing stronger and more resourceful families (to better support young people). The Unit takes a ‘whole family approach’ to reducing violence. Programmes in this space focus on building strong parental and family relationships and supporting organisations and agencies to work together to engage families and support their needs. 

The Violence Reduction Unit has invested in a Parent Carer Champion Network (approved in PCD 1442, 1295,1263 and CEOD 29/23) which has already supported over 7,000 parents and carers to increase their confidence in parenting and improve their family relationships.  The Network is empowering and providing opportunities for parents and carers to shape their own lives, and an external evaluation (approved in CEOD 29/23) will commence in 2023/24 Q4 to establish the effectiveness of the Network’s approach to reaching its high level intended outcomes. 

This decision seeks approval to extend the programme for a year across FY 2024/25 by £1,305,000, so the Network in 29 boroughs, being delivered through 27 grassroots voluntary sector organisations, can continue to run building a wider evidence base whilst a process and impact evaluation is undertaken by a commissioned evaluation partner. 

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:  

• Approve the carry forward of funds from 2023/24 to 2024/25 of £136,884. 

• Approve the extension of the Parent Carer Network Programme to 2024/25 at a total cost of £1,305,000 of which £1,205,326 will be funded through the VRU budget smoothing and carry forward reserves, with the balance to be funded through existing budget provision.  

PART I - NON-CONFIDENTIAL FACTS AND ADVICE TO THE DMPC 

1. Introduction and background – 

2. Violence Reduction Unit’s Families Work   
   Developing stronger and more resilient families to better support young people is one of the seven priority areas of the Mayor’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU). Supporting stronger families is central to improving outcomes relating to children and young people’s development and health.  

3. Parent Carers Champion Network  
   In 2020, the VRU invested in its flagship parenting programme, the Parent Carer Champion Network (PCCN), this was approved in PCD 1442, 1295,1263 and CEOD 29. The Parent Carer Champion Network is a peer-to-peer support programme that enables safe spaces for parents to share experiences, receive training and access community-led support on topics like violence affecting young people, grooming, school exclusions and transitions.  

4. The Network has supported over 7,000 parents across 29 local authorities, through 27 voluntary and community sector organisations. The aim of the Network is to empower and provide opportunities for parents and carers to shape their own lives, whilst improving their confidence in parenting, their wellbeing and fostering supportive, healthy family relationships. Parents in the network report increased confidence in parenting, and improved family relationships as a result.  

5. Outcomes  
   The PCCN works to deliver the following primary outcomes, based on the VRU Outcomes Framework:  

Parent/Carer Outcomes:  

• Parents/Carers are empowered and have opportunities to shape their own life  

• Families have better life stability/quality of life 

• Increased confidence in parenting  

• Improved mental health and wellbeing of parent/carers   

• Improved parental ability to identify concerning behaviours  

• Improved capability for parents to talk/access to peer support  

• Improved pathways to support (especially reaching marginalised groups)  

Parent/Carer Champion Outcomes  

• Improved awareness of available support (including statutory services, criminal justice system etc)  

• Parent Carer Champion's report positive changes in behaviour and attitude  

• Improved nurturing and responsive parental relationships 

• Families have better life stability/quality of life 

1. Issues for consideration  

2. The Parent Carer Champion Network has never been externally evaluated, and the VRU want to establish the effectiveness of the Network’s approach to reaching its high level intended outcomes, and specifically to draw out the learning on what is working well in different areas so this can inform future parenting work. This extension will enable a whole programme process and impact evaluation to take place (approved in CEOD 29/23) through a commissioned evaluation partner. 

3. The Parent Carer Champion Network plays a central role in strengthening communities, ensuring that resilience, wellbeing, and opportunities for young people to succeed, extend beyond school settings and are supported at home and in the wider community. The PCCN not only delivers substantial impact to the parents and carers it trains up and supports but is also a credible and effective way of increasing confidence in public institutions through culturally aware, peer-to-peer support imbued with compassionate and compelling lived experience. 

4.       Financial Comment 

1. The total budget requirement for this work totals £1,305,000. The programme will be delivered across 12 months (April 2024 – March 2025), and up to 29 boroughs will receive equal funding to continue funding the voluntary sector grassroots organisations they work with to deliver their PCCNs. 

2. The draft 2024/25 budget for this programme assumes funding of £1,000,000 from the VRU budget smoothing reserve and £136,884 usage of carry forwards subject to DMPC approval, totalling £1,136,884. Of the remaining £168,116 funding required £99,674 will be allocated from the Parenting Development 2024/25 draft budget and the remaining £68,442 funding to come from the budget smoothing reserve. Programme funding is detailed in the table below: 

3. The programme and evaluation budget for 2024/25 will form part of the exit strategy for VRU funding of this programme to promote other partners to further support these local networks and best practice models. 

4. Legal Comments 

1. MOPAC’s general powers are set out in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 (the 2011 Act). Section 3(6) of the 2011 Act provides that MOPAC must “secure the maintenance of the metropolitan police service and secure that the metropolitan police service is efficient and effective.” This is a broad power, and the initiatives appear to be part of a number of proposals which are aimed at supporting victims of crime to enable the efficiency and effectiveness of the police service. In addition, under Schedule 3, paragraph 7 MOPAC has wide incidental powers to “do anything which is calculated to facilitate, or is conducive or incidental to, the exercise of the functions of the Office.” Paragraph 7(2) (a) provides that this includes entering into contracts and other agreements. 

2. Paragraph 4.8 (8) and 4.13 (1), (2) of the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides that the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC) has delegated authority to: 

• Approve bids for grant funding made and all offers made of grant funding; and/or  

where appropriate a strategy for grant giving.  

• Approve the strategy for the award of individual grants and/ or the award of all individual grants whether to secure or contribute to securing crime reduction in London or for other purposes. 

3. Officers can confirm that the DMPC has the legal authority to agree this decision.    

4. Commercial Issues  

5. This decision is seeking approval to increase funding to 27 London boroughs to further increase the Parent Carer Champion work. 

2. The boroughs will be sent a Grant Modification Letter which will include the mandatory requirements, specification, reporting requirements and our outcomes. The Local Authorities pricing to deliver the services is in line with their existing pricing schedule with no more than 10% going towards management costs, the rest of the funds will go towards the PCCN activities.  

3. Public Health Approach  

4. The spend plan takes a public health approach to tackling violence, which means looking at violence not as isolated incidents or solely a police enforcement problem. Instead, this approach looks at violence as a preventable consequence of a range of factors, such as adverse early-life experiences, or harmful social or community experiences and influences.  

5. This programme is part of the London Violence Reduction Unit’s Families portfolio. The programme acknowledges that violence affecting children and young people is preventable, and the parents and carers, communities, voluntary sector organisations, and local authorities, have a unique role to play in intervening early and ensuring that children and young people get access to the interventions and support services that they need. 

6. This piece of work has been informed by discussions and feedback from stakeholders including the use of data to take evidence informed approach to investment.  

7. GDPR and Data Privacy  

8. MOPAC will adhere to the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 and ensure that any organisations who are commissioned to do work with or on behalf of MOPAC are fully compliant with the policy and understand their GDPR responsibilities. Suppliers will be asked to provide a Data Protection Impact Assessment. 

9. All contracts will include clear provisions relating to compliance in this area, and in relation to the processing of personal data. These terms will be drafted following consultation with MOPAC’s GDPR Project Manager.   

10. Equality Comments 

11.  MOPAC is required to comply with the public sector equality duty set out in section 149(1) of the Equality Act 2010. This requires MOPAC to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations by reference to people with protected characteristics. The protected characteristics are: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. 

12. The VRU are committed to promoting equality and participation in all their activities, whether this is related to the work we do with our external stakeholders or whether this is related to our responsibilities as an employer. As public authorities we are also required to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations when making decisions and developing policies. To do this, it is necessary to understand the potential impacts of the range of internal and external activities on different groups of people. 

13. An equality impact assessment has already been undertaken for the Parent Carer Champion Network to ensure that all protected characteristics are considered in the commissioning and delivery of this work.  

14. Background/supporting papers. 

n/a