Title and Reference – PCC/D/076
Subject: Extension with amendments of Grant Agreement for Bedfordshire Family, Drug and Alcohol Court until 31st March 2025
Report of: Police and Crime Commissioner
Date: 24/04/2023
Summary:
During the term of the previous Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), the PCC formally agreed to fund the Family, Drug and Alcohol Court (here after named FDAC) an amount of £100,000.00 per year for 3 financial years from 2022-2025.

FDAC in 2022/2023 received funding via Central Bedfordshire Council from both core OPCC funding streams. FDAC received £60,000 funding from the Community Safety Fund (CSF) for FDAC support and partial payment for the FDAC Team Manager and the remaining £40,000 was funded via the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) for a Domestic Abuse Expert.

A summary of the service as provided by the FDAC Team Manager is detailed below;

An overview of the £100k funding split:

£40,000 contribution for a Domestic Abuse Expert
£20,000 contribution towards FDAC domestic abuse support
£40,000 part contribution towards the FDAC Team Manager

In the financial year 2022/23 the Domestic Abuse expert was initially seconded from Bedfordshire Victim Care Services for quarter 1, moving to employment with FDAC in quarter 2.

A summary of each element of service is outlined below:

FDAC parents have workers allocated to work with them on a one to one as per their assessed need and each team member’s area of expertise. Each parent will work with an FDAC keyworker (substance recovery work and parenting work) and almost always the Domestic Abuse Expert (domestic abuse/healthy relationship work). They are also likely to see the FDAC Psychiatrist (assessment of mental health need) and work with the FDAC Primary Mental Health Worker (one to one wellbeing and therapy work). They may also access the FDAC Attachment Parenting Group – Managing Behaviour with Attachment in Mind (looking at their experience of being parented, their child’s experience and likely need of reparative parenting and how to provide it).

Domestic Abuse Expert

During 2022/2023, 100% of parents have required domestic abuse support. Across the history of Pan Beds FDAC this has never fallen below 94%. This work is usually provided by the FDAC Domestic Abuse Expert. The FDAC Domestic Abuse Worker works with a parent from each family where there has been domestic abuse/unhealthy relationships.
Domestic abuse support
Where both parents are in FDAC, they are separated and supported by separate team members to work with each parent in respect of domestic abuse. This is so that separate workers are working with the survivor and with the individual who has perpetrated domestic abuse. This promotes a sense of safety for the survivor. For the parent who has perpetrated domestic abuse having a worker who is not working with their victim supports the individual to move beyond a shame response to engage meaningfully. It also supports understanding of the case dynamics having more than one expert’s perspective.
Where the FDAC Domestic Abuse Expert is working with one of the parents, the FDAC Assessing Social Worker does domestic abuse/healthy relationship work with the other parent (where both are in FDAC). This enables separate domestic abuse workers for each parent where both are in FDAC (whether together or separated).

FDAC Team Manager

The FDAC Team Manager leads the FDAC team in practice and facilitates Pan Beds FDAC strategically. The Team Manager manages a team of multi-disciplinary professionals including social workers, substance misuse specialist, domestic abuse expert, psychologist, psychiatrist, and therapist.

Predicted Outputs for each element of service

Domestic Abuse Expert

This work includes but is not limited to weekly one to one healthy relationship sessions with parents. This work is to develop an individual’s ability to become able to protect themselves from abusive and unhealthy relationship behaviours. Dependent on assessed need it can include work on relationship with self, intimate partners, family members, friends/associates, professionals.

Work with parents can include setting homework that reinforces the messages of sessions and completion of this informs the planning of the next session.

This work requires dynamic risk assessment and management and safety planning (including use of safe words/phrases).
Information sharing is a constant. Work also includes when appropriate DASH completion, MARAC referrals, accessing refuges, cuckooing/safeguarding referral, promotion of access to protective orders, crime report, liaison with IDVAs etc.

The worker also provides contribution to court reports. As with the rest of the FDAC team, the work done is trauma informed and non-shaming. Alongside practice and personal supervision, the FDAC Domestic Abuse Expert accesses clinical supervision with the FDAC psychologist to support meeting the parent where they are including moving them forward when they are ‘stuck’.

The Domestic Abuse Expert is working with the FDAC psychologist to develop a trauma informed written healthy relationship programme that can be used by others in work with survivors and those who perpetrate domestic abuse.

Domestic abuse support

The Assessing Social Worker provides supplementary healthy relationship work that mirror most of the work done by the Domestic Abuse Expert. This is provided when the Domestic Abuse Expert is working with the other parent in the family.

FDAC Team Manager

Team Manager practice responsibilities include but are not limited to management of safeguarding/risk matters, court representation, liaison with legal parties, practice and personal supervision, quality assurance, usual team management tasks such as recruiting and development.
Team Manager strategic responsibilities include but are not limited to development/maintenance of relationships with partners, budgeting and reporting, development/maintenance of relationships with community services and pathways, development of Pan Beds FDAC provision, national FDAC involvement including with the Centre for Justice Innovation.

Predicted Outcomes for each element of service

The outcomes from each of the funded elements of service are seen within the overall FDAC outcomes. This is because parents are worked with across the service provision by various experts to produce improved outcomes for children who are subject to care proceedings and where there are parental difficulties with drug and/or alcohol misuse.

The outcomes include but are not limited to:

Increased rates of safe reunification of children to parents’ care within FDAC over that of standard care proceedings.
Improved individual functioning including improved self-worth.
Safer relationships – intimate partner/family/friend/associate
Improved parental functioning.
Achieving abstinence/reduced substance misuse.
Improved emotional and mental wellbeing.
Lest contested care proceedings = reduced additional trauma.
Reduced offending rates.
Improved access to community services.

In addition to OPCC and MOJ grant funding, funding is received from the three local authorities to provide a Pan Bedfordshire FDAC.

Recommendation

The Commissioning Team recommends continuing the collaborative funding for FDAC to be provided from the Community Safety Fund at the value of £100,000 per year for the remaining two years of the agreement until 31st March 2025.

This will enable a more streamlined approach to financial management and monitoring. Additionally, the alignment to the Community Safety Fund will enable the PCC to evidence against Priority 3 of the Police and Crime Plan, Tackling the causes of crime and breaking the cycle of re-offending with a perpetrator focus for crime types inclusive of Domestic Abuse.

It is proposed to award funding directly to FDAC for purposes outlined above on the basis of The Public Contracts Regulations 2015, No.102, Part 2, Chapter 1, Section 1, Sub-section 3, Regulation 12 which relates to Public contracts between entities within the public sector (in this case us awarding funding to Central Bedfordshire Council).

Furthermore, given the scope of FDAC and the Pan Bedfordshire approach, the Commissioning Team also propose to amend the approach to monitoring, to fall in line with the wider funding provision from local authorities and partners. As the leading partner regarding monitoring, the Commissioning Team will continue to request data using the current monitoring document as imbedded below, however a holistic approach to monitoring outcomes and funding discussions will be taken forward with the leads from other funding organisations.

To note decision
Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner

I hereby approve the recommendations above.