About this study
The government's first Family Intervention Projects, set up in 2006, focus on reducing families' anti-social behaviour.
These projects deliver support in a number of ways:
- they offer outreach support to families in their own home,
they provide support in temporary accommodation located in the community, andthere is 24-hour support in a residential care unit where the family live with project staff.
Find out more
You can read some topline findings from our early evaluation here, or the full report for this evaluation here. You can also read the first report to include information on families who have been followed up after they exited from a FIP intervention here.
Potential policy impact
Early positive feedback on Family Intervention Projects has pushed the Government to make funding available for more projects across the UK.
New projects are also being introduced to focus on child poverty (read about our evaluation) and youth crime.
The projects' new approach cuts across a number of key Government policies including:
- the Every Child Matters objectives to improve child outcomes,
the Government’s goal to end homelessness by 2012 (as some families' anti-social behaviour can lead to eviction and homelessness),the Youth Crime Action Plan, andthe Government’s commitment to halving child poverty by 2010-11.
Methods
The first type of Family Intervention Project which focuses on anti-social behaviour has been evaluated in two parts.
The first part looked at how effectively ASB Family Intervention Projects were designed and implemented. To do this, we conducted face to face interviews with 53 Anti-Social Behaviour FIPs. We then carried out depth interviews with 9 FIPs, in order to further explore the views and experiences of participating families, staff and local services.
The second part of the evaluation involved designing a secure online information system that key workers used to record information about families.
The first part of the evaluation is now complete and the findings have been published.
The second part of the evaluation continues as key workers carry on using the information system to record information about families which we use to monitor their progress. You can read about the results of this monitoring here.
This study is part of our Family Intervention Projects series.