Families First
Families First: Developing the Workforce for Social Care reforms
Children's social care is changing.
The Families First Partnership Programme is strengthening the way services work with children and families — bringing together Family Help, multi-agency working, family networks, Family Group Decision-Making and stronger child-centred practice.
For practitioners, this is not simply about understanding a new framework. It is about being able to put it into practice confidently and consistently.
Griffin Training has developed a dedicated Families First workforce development offer, combining current national expectations with practical skills that practitioners can use immediately in their work with children and families
Our Families First
Family Help: Core Skills for Practice
Family Group Decision-Making
Working Effectively with Kinship Families
Family Help: Core Skills for Practice
Our flagship workforce development programme supports practitioners to translate Families First expectations into everyday practice.
The programme develops skills in:
- child-centred assessment and planning
- analysis and professional curiosity
- working effectively with families
- identifying and mobilising family networks
- multi-agency information sharing and analysis
- outcome-focused planning
- measuring the impact of intervention on the child
A central question runs throughout the programme:
What changed for the child and how do we know?
The programme can include practice application between modules, Action Learning Sets and impact measurement, helping commissioners demonstrate not simply that training was delivered, but that learning was transferred into practice.
Families First places much greater emphasis on involving the wider family network in finding solutions for children.
Our FGDM training helps practitioners understand and apply family-led decision-making principles, including:
- identifying and engaging the wider family network
- preparing children, family members and professionals
- supporting meaningful participation by children
- enabling families to develop their own solutions
- balancing family ownership with safeguarding responsibilities
- testing and reviewing family plans
- maintaining a clear focus on outcomes for the child
Available as face-to-face training and standalone e-learning (coming soon).
Kinship care is a significant part of the changing children's social care landscape.
We offer two distinct programmes:
Kinship Care in Practice
For social workers, Family Help practitioners and other professionals working with children and kinship families.
Kinship Care: Stepping Into the Role
Practical, accessible training delivered directly to kinship carers.
Our approach recognises both the strengths of family care and the practical, emotional and financial pressures that can affect the sustainability of kinship arrangements.
Chairing Complex Meetings
Effective multi-agency and family working depends upon meetings that lead to clear analysis, decisions and action.
Our practical chairing programme develops the skills needed to manage:
- professional disagreement
- conflicting evidence
- challenging conversations
- family participation
- risk and safeguarding concerns
- drift and unclear decision-making
- multi-agency accountability
- clear actions and review
The focus is not simply on running a good meeting, but on ensuring that the meeting achieves something meaningful for the child and family.
Available as face-to-face training and standalone e-learning (coming soon).
Evidence of Impact.
Training should change practice.
Our Families First programmes can incorporate:
Baseline assessment → training → application in practice → Action Learning Sets → child-impact evidence → manager feedback → end-point evaluation
This provides commissioners with evidence of workforce development, practice change and impact, not simply attendance figures.
A Practical Approach to Social care reform
Griffin Training has worked with children's services practitioners and managers across the North West for many years. Our approach is deliberately practical. We take the expectations contained within national reform and translate them into the skills, tools, conversations and decisions practitioners need in everyday work with children and families.
Talk to us about your Families First workforce priorities. Programmes can be commissioned individually or combined to support a wider Families First workforce development programme.