Families First Partnership Programme (FFPP)
Together, we are committed to keeping children and young people across our borough safe from harm and abuse to ensure they have the best start in life and the opportunity to thrive and succeed.
Through the delivery of key services from partners, families can access the right help and support they need at the very earliest opportunity.
This includes services delivered by Rochdale Borough Council, health services, schools, voluntary and community groups. We continue to enhance and improve this offer to support and meet the needs of our residents and through the government’s Families First Partnership (FFP) Programme, this new initiative builds on our existing practice.
What is the Families First Partnership Programme?
As part of the government’s efforts to improve children’s social care across England, a range of new safeguarding reforms have been introduced, known as the Families First Partnership Programme.
These reforms include key changes to the delivery of…
- family help
- multiagency child protection
- family group decision making
... to help more families stay together and thrive without the need for children to come into care.
By providing more of the right help at the right time, and by services working together even more closely through a more joined-up and family-focused approach to early help and child protection, more children can grow up safely, with the right love and support around them.
The programme has received national funding to support councils across England make these changes.
What will these reforms change?
The Families First Partnership Programme aims to deliver key changes to the children’s social care system that will improve the safety and wellbeing of children and young people. This will be done by bringing practitioners from early help, social work, police, health, education, and beyond closer together to promote the wellbeing of children and keep them safe from harm.
These changes include:
- Family Help
The needs and circumstances of local families will be understood and responded to at the earliest opportunity to enable children to thrive and help families to stay together. With one clear assessment and plan in place, coordinated by one lead practitioner who brings different professionals and services together, families will avoid having to repeat their story.
- Multi-Agency Child Protection Teams (MACPTs)
Professionals and agencies from different backgrounds will work together more closely as one team to identify potential harm to children and support Family Help teams to take action to protect children.
This team, which includes a new role of Lead Child Protection Practitioner (LCPP), will work closely with the Family Help teams and support their work with families to address their needs and concerns and ensure they are acted on promptly.
- Family Group Decision Making (FGDM)
Also known in our borough as Family Group Conferencing, FGDM’s will give families and the wider family network a voice in making plans for their children to help families to stay together safely.
FGDM’s will also help parents and carers to access support to address their own needs and find solutions that work for the whole family.
Who will this support?
The reforms will support children up the age of 18 and young adults who continue to receive support from children’s social care as care leavers or through education, health and care plans, up to the age of 25.
When will these reforms be introduced?
The government has requested safeguarding partners across the country to begin implementing these reforms from April 1 2026.
Our local safeguarding partners are currently working together to co-design a system that will serve the needs of local families for when these reforms come into effect.
What will the outcomes of these reforms be?
The introduction of these reforms aim to:
- Support families to stay together
- Reduce the number of cared for children
- Provide more support from an early opportunity
- Improve children and young people’s outcomes
- Avoid children, young people and families telling their stories multiple times or being passed between teams or practitioners
- Encourage services to work together and take a more joined-up, family focused approach to early help and child protection
The government is also committed to improving the availability of foster homes, reducing the use of residential care, using family strengths through kinship support and there are a series of work streams in place to support that ambition.
If you would like to know more about these reforms in greater detail, please visit the government website for a full breakdown.