Priority Theme : Whole Family Wellbeing
Priority – Whole Family Wellbeing is promoted and improved by enabling families to get the right support early and effectively.
Introduction
The Whole Family Wellbeing group aims to build and encourage a coordinated, holistic way of working to support children, young people and families to access support and reduce the need for crisis intervention. In Aberdeenshire, we are supporting the development of Family Wellbeing Hubs in Peterhead and Fraserburgh where families can be supported to build relationships with each other and professionals and access support in the right way, at the right time for them. Where we identify successful practice, we will share this learning across Aberdeenshire and support similar approaches elsewhere.
Membership: Tackling Poverty & Inequalities, Social Work, Community Justice, Housing & Building Services, Education Psychology, Communities, Wellbeing & Partnership, Change Team, Third Sector, Police Scotland and Health Visiting Team.
Aims and Goals
The group aims to work collaboratively to support the goal of ensuring families have access to the right support, at the right time and in the right way. Focusing on relationships and connections, we want to support the creation of capability rather than the management of dependency. We do this by:
- Consulting with children, young people and families to gather their views on what they need to live well and what the challenges are to inform next steps, specifically in Peterhead and Fraserburgh.
- Promoting the awareness and use of signposting tools to help the identification of the right support at the right time for families.
- Promoting the identification and input of activities, support and services to ensure information is easily accessible.
- Reviewing and exploring pathways in/out of services for families via the Family Wellbeing Hubs in a collaborative manner, identifying and exploring any challenges identified with a focus on improvement.
- Supporting the promotion and engagement with projects funded through the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund in Aberdeenshire to meet the key aims of the Whole Family Wellbeing Group
Current work
The Family Wellbeing Hubs in Peterhead and Fraserburgh are in development, with our staff team now in place. Families, children and young people continue to be consulted with and involved in activities to identify what’s important to them and what they need to grow up well in their local areas. This information is helping us to shape the Hubs to effectively meet, respond to and adapt to the needs of children, young people and families in the local area
We have held a number of partner events which has supported new partnerships and increased knowledge between partners. There is early evidence that this may result in some new collaborative partnership bids for the next round of Whole Family Support funding.
The projects funded by the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund in Aberdeenshire are at an early stage, promotion, monitoring and support to these will be ongoing and explored by the thematic group to ensure we have the best possible outcomes for children, young people and families and make the best of the funding available to us with a focus on the sustainability of the impact of funding.
Resources
https://www.gov.scot/policies/girfec/whole-family-wellbeing-funding
Holistic whole family support: routemap and national principles – gov.scot (www.gov.scot)