News
Troubled Families Programme as transformation catalyst in Oldham
Under the banner of “Thriving Communities”, Oldham has taken the following steps:
- Mapping community assets: identifying Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise Sector (VCFSE) organisations that want to participate and support residents;
- Developing a Thriving Communities Index: mapping how well each of 115 neighbourhoods are doing, as assessed against a range of factors based on place, resident and service demand.
- Placing members of the community and VCFSEs at the centre of service delivery.
- Getting statutory services to work with community and voluntary agencies, sharing understanding and expertise.
The novelty of Oldham’s approach can be seen in its Place Based Integration sites, argues Sutcliffe:
We have multi-agency integrated teams who are engaging the community daily on deep rooted system wide issues like antisocial behaviour, trafficking and community cohesion. Agencies including social care, health, housing, police, MASH/early help, benefits and again crucially the VCFSE work together though co-location and integration. They are drawing in multi-agency information on the locality from across the partners then making agile decisions which tackle the root of place-based issues. There are 4 focused sites currently live, with work being done to create a scaled and universal model. This is part of a wider set of ambitions to transform public services in Greater Manchester and Oldham is informing that approach.
Oldham are now working to build a robust evaluation framework in order to convince commissioners of the value of this approach. Find out more details at the Troubled Families blog, where Sutcliffe also invites others to share their experiences with service transformation under challenging circumstances.