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  • Highland Whole Family Wellbeing Programme Self-Assessment Toolkit

    Highland Whole Family Wellbeing Programme Self-Assessment Toolkit
  • The Highland Whole Family Wellbeing Programme supports activity, across Highlands’ localities that strengthen the Four Pillars of Holistic Whole Family Support. With partners we will work towards holistic, timely and prevention focussed family support that addresses needs when they arise and not just at the point of crisis. In doing so, strengthen family resilience so that every child can be raised and thrive in their own family.

  • Form Security

  • A Unique Indentifier Code (ID) is generated automatically by the system. You will be asked to create a password in the toolkit form which is set to be 8 characters long and be a mix of letters and numbers.  The ID and password will be included in the submission email once the form has been completed. Please save this email for future reference.  

    If you are completing this as part of a funding application, you will need your Password to allow the system to pre-populate the Organisational Detail fields into the application form thus avoiding unnecessary repetition.

  • Privacy Notice

  • Click HERE to review the Whole Family Wellbeing Programme Privacy notice. 

  • Contents

    Vision

    Pillars and Principles of Holistic Whole Family Support

    Glossary of Terms

    Self-Assessment Toolkit - Purpose

    How to Complete this Self-Assessment

    Service/Organisation Detail

     

    Self Assessment Quality Indicator Checklists

     

    Pillar 1     Children and families at the centre

    Pillar 2     Availability and access

    Pillar 3     A whole system approach to holistic whole family wellbeing

    Pillar 4     Leadership, workforce and culture

  • Our Vision

  • Every family that needs support gets the right family support at the right time to fulfil children’s right to be raised safely in their own families, for as long as it is needed.


    The Highland Whole Family Wellbeing Programme supports activity, across Highlands’ localities that strengthen the Four Pillars of Holistic Whole Family Support. With partners we will work towards holistic, timely and prevention focussed family support that addresses needs when they arise and not just at the point of crisis. In doing so, reduce the chances of family breakdown and ultimately the number of families entering the care system.

  • Pillars and Principles of Holistic Whole Family Support

  • Scottish Government’s Route map and National Principles of Holistic Whole Family Support  highlights the key pillars which underpin holistic whole family support and provide the structure upon which change can be achieved.

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  • 10 Principles of Holistic Whole Family Support.

    10 Principles of Holistic Whole Family Support.
  • Weaving together the four pillars, are the 10 principles of holistic whole family support. Some of these reaffirm aspects of the approach and ethos embodied within the four pillars and others highlight additional core elements.

    Non-stigmatising

    Support should be promoted and provided free from stigma and judgement. Services should be as normalised as accessing universal services.

    Whole Family

    Support should be rooted in GIRFEC and wrapped around the whole family. This requires relevant join up with adult services.

    Needs based

    Support should be tailored to fit around each individual family, not be driven by rigid services or structures. It should cover the spectrum of support from universal services, more tailored support for wellbeing, and intensive support (to prevent or in response to statutory interventions). Creative approaches to support should be encouraged.

    Assets and community based

    Support should be empowering, building on existing strengths within the family and wider community. Families should be able to ‘reach in’ not be ‘referred to’. Support must be explicitly connected to locations that work for local families and the community, such as schools, health centres, village halls and sports centres.

    Timely and Sustainable

    Flexible, responsive and proportionate support should be available to families as soon as they need it, and for as long as it is required, adapting to changing needs.

    Promoted

    Families should have easy, well understood routes of access to support. They should feel empowered to do so and have choice about the support they access to ensure it meets their needs.

    Take account of families’ voice

    At a strategic and individual level, children and families should be meaningfully involved in the design, delivery, evaluation and continuous improvement of services. Support should be based on trusted relationships between families and professionals working together with mutual respect to ensure targeted and developmental support.

    Collaborative and Seamless

    Support should be multi-agency and joined up across services, so families do not experience multiple referrals or inconsistent support.

    Skilled and Supported Workforce

    Support should be informed by an understanding of attachment, trauma, inequality and poverty. Staff should be supported to take on additional responsibilities and trusted to be innovative in responding to the needs of families.

    Underpinned by Children’s Rights

    Children’s rights should be the funnel through which every decision and support service is viewed.

    Excerpt from the Scottish Government’s Routemap and National Principles of Holistic Whole Family Support

  • Glossary of Terms

  • Children and Young People (CYP) – pre-birth to 18, or up to the 26th birthday for care leavers in receipt of aftercare or continuing care, who may or may not be resident with the family.

    Family - this toolkit refers to all families, not only those already accessing family support. Family will be as defined by them themselves, recognising some CYP may belong to more than 1 family.

    Service/Organisation – any resource, statutory or 3rd sector who is providing holistic whole family support.

    Staff – any person representing a service in a paid or unpaid role.

    Stakeholders - all CYP, all families, staff within and outside your organisation, communities, Highland Community Planning Partnership.

    System – The system is defined as all stakeholders whose relationships are key to actualising the vision of holistic whole family support in Highland.

    Collaborate – working jointly to achieve a shared goal with shared purpose.

    ‘Reach in’ – families are and feel empowered, having confidence to express their need and access the support they need when they need it.

    Community of practice – stakeholders in Highland who share a concern or a passion for holistic whole family support and interact regularly to learn how to do it better.

    Data – information available from family, community and service narratives plus numerical data and research evidence from local and national sources

    Evidence based need – stakeholders are consistently data driven to review, develop and enhance holistic family support in Highland.

    SHANARRI – the 8 GIRFEC principles that very child should be: safe, healthy, achieving, nurtured, active, respected, responsible, included.

    SOCIAL PRESCRIBING - is about people finding out what matters to them. It is about helping them to find the right support when they need it, connecting them with activities, groups and services in their local community that can help address some of the challenges and issues that they may be struggling with.

    GIRFEC Staged Intervention Model

    • Universal Support and Information – Children, young people and families are thriving with no additional support needs.
    • They access everyday services e.g. Education, early years settings, GP, community services.
    • Early Intervention and Prevention – services that support children, young people, and families before they meet the threshold for intervention from children’s services.
    • Enhanced Support - the child, young person and family’s needs may require multi-agency interventions at substantial level.
    • Intensive Support - the child, young person’s and family are assessed as having exceptional additional support needs, an intense level of multi-agency coordination is required and a co-ordinated support plan is in place which may include statutory measures.

     SMART Action Planning (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely)

    • a manageable number of improvement priorities which focus on areas for development to improve outcomes for children, young people and families
    • the impact that improvement actions may have should be measurable
    • clearly identified responsibilities for implementation linked to named individuals, lead services or partnership groups
    • clear timescales with milestones, deadlines and dates for reviewing actions if necessary
    • measures of success that include performance data, quality measures and stakeholders’ views.

    Fair Work Practices
    Fair Work First is a Scottish Government policy which applies to any public sector funding, awarded on or after 1 July 2023. If you are awarded a grant, you will be required to follow the guidance to adopt fair work practices within your organisation, in a way that is relevant and proportionate to the activity you have agreed to deliver. The criteria to pay the real Living Wage and provide appropriate channels for effective workers’ voice, are the minimum terms that apply to grant recipients of this fund.

  • Self Assessment Toolkit - Purpose

  • This self-assessment toolkit, is based on quality indicators of a holistic whole family wellbeing approach and has 5 functions.

    1. Support development of a shared language and understanding of holistic whole family support across Highland (and Scotland)
    2. Provide an evaluative baseline assessment for organisations providing services in and for Highland families and communities
    3. Provide organisations and local partnerships with data evidence, supporting ongoing reflection and service improvement alongside all stakeholders
    4. Identify strengths, successes for celebration and promotion, areas for development and gaps in provision
    5. Mandatory element of applications to the Highland Whole Family Wellbeing Fund.

    It is important to note: This is not an external scrutiny tool, but one which aims to support
    organisations and services to reflect on their alignment to the National Pillars and Principles
    and identify small opportunities for enhancement and development over time.

     

    Establishing a baseline - how good are we now?
    The use of the quality indicator statements within each pillar from page 10 onwards, will enable services/organisations to benchmark current practice and establish a way to measure progress. Answering these challenge questions will help partners identify strengths within and across service delivery and begin to consider areas which need to improve or further develop. See appendix 2 What does Success Look Like?

     

    Continuous Self-assessment
    Used effectively, continuous self-assessment helps partners to monitor progress and continue to strive for excellence. Where best practice is identified, it should be celebrated, and shared with others. If aspects, impacts, and outcomes are not as good as expected, the source of the issues can be identified by ‘taking a closer look’ at a particular theme or topic. This proportionate approach allows partners to focus on priority areas rather than routinely covering all aspects of their service/organisation.

     

    Gathering evidence - how do we know?
    Conclusions should be based on a range of evidence sources and might include:

    • Outcome data collected nationally, locally or within a service.
    • Direct surveys of ALL* stakeholders’ views – direct feedback, stories of change, observation, and evaluation of practice
    • Photographs and other media including website and/or social media.
    • Reviews of a range of documentation that evidences decision-making processes, e.g. templates
    used with CYP/families, planning templates etc. 

    Please be sure when submitting evidence that all personal data is fully redacted, and permission is sought if sharing photographs or videos.

    Next steps – what do we plan to do next?
    This self-assessment tool, regardless of ‘why’ it is being used, gives a set of clear quality indicators and tangible priorities for a strategic approach to holistic whole family support services improvement and development. Data will be captured and will inform the wider programme development which might include service directory, community of practice, celebration success sharing practice, and enable reports to the Highland Integrated Children’s Services Board, The Highland Community Planning Partnership Board and the wider partnership including The Scottish Government.

    *Ensuring children and young people’s voices are fully reflected and are sought in age/stage appropriate ways

  • How to Complete this Self-Assessment

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    Pillars and their Components
    There are 4 sections in the self-assessment, guided by each of the 4 Pillars and their components.

     

    Quality Indicator Statements
    The quality indicator statements will help prompt/guide you in your thinking/reflection.

    Select the checkbox which best represents the status of that indicator within your service/organisation. The options are as follows;

    • ‘Not started’ - if the indicator is new to you and you have yet to think about developing this.

    • ‘Developing’ - if work on this indicator has started e.g., Team conversations, participatory activity, partnership conversations or action plans are evolving.

    • ‘Ready’- if this indicator is fully active and visible in your service/organisation/partnership. You are confident it can be clearly evidenced.

     

    Evidence
    Share a summary of the relevant/proportionate evidence in the free text field below each Pillar, there is also an option for you to attach up to 5 supporting files. You have the option to attach files in a variety of formats e.g. PDF Word, Mp3, PNG.

    Important: When attaching files please ensure you link the name of the file to the particular quality indicator or set of indicators. For example, you might provide evidence relating to indicator 1.1 ‘Feedback Report from CYP and Families’. If attaching a supporting file for this, please note the indicator number in the title e.g. 1.1 Feedback Report from CYP and Families. This file may relate to more than one indicator e.g. 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 so highlight all 3 indicators in its title.

    Refer to Purpose tab for suggestions for the range of useful evidence

     

    SMART Action Planning
    After each of the 4 Pillars sections, there is a further free text box. Please use this to highlight the SMART actions towards improvement and anything that might help aid progress. Also, please use this space to highlight success stories of practice and/or innovative ideas that have supported improvement.

    Refer to Purpose tab for 'SMART' information

  • Service/Organisation Details

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  • Self Assessment Quality Indicator Checklist

  •  Pillar 1 - Children, Young People and Families at the Centre

    • Engagement with CYP and families is meaningful and fully inclusive.
    • The whole family participates in decisions that affect them.
    • Service planning is embedded in UNCRC principles reflecting a rights-based approach.
    • Services are pro-active in eradicating stigma
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  • Pillar 2 - Availability and Access

    • Families are aware of information and support available.
    • Communities and organisations take active steps to ensure families feel empowered to access support.
    • Support is located in local communities in settings that are right for CYP and families, free from stigma and judgement
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  • Pillar 3 - A Whole System Approach to Holistic Whole Family Wellbeing       

    • A family support system (across and within organisations) that is accountable to service users.

    • A system that ensures appropriate support is offered based on need from least to most intensive.

    • Funding decisions are collaborative, proportionate, and transparent with clear evidence base of expressed/assessed need.

    • Partners have a shared language and understanding of whole system holistic family support and consistently assess need through that lens.

    • All partners have equal voice in shaping a system which is innovative, creative, with trauma informed principles visible at every stage

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  • Pillar 4 - Leadership, Workforce and Culture              

    • The workforce (statutory and third sector) shares an understanding of the needs of families in local areas.

    • Services work towards shared outcomes for holistic whole family wellbeing across Highland.

    • The workforce is skilled and has values that reflect the 9 principles of holistic whole family support.

    • Best practice is shared locally, across existing networks and nationally.

    • Workers are actively supported and empowered to develop skills to fulfil their ambition and be innovative in their practice.

    • Workers experience trauma informed employers and organisations

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