Home Office publishes our analysis of consultation responses
Report published on Strengthening Complex Families in Essex
Today we have published a report on Strengthening Complex Families in Essex, with a focus on children whose parents have problems with drugs, alcohol, mental health, offending or domestic abuse.
Key recommendations from the report include:
Conduct an exercise to identify the top 400-600 complex families and estimate the cost to Essex services of dealing with them
Ensure better join up of services for children and adults through adopting a joint working protocol for complex families
Pool training and communication resources across agencies on issues relating to parental problems such as substance misuse, mental health, offending and domestic violence
Consider adopting one of the strengthening complex families programmes that has demonstrated cost savings, improved family outcomes and better safeguarding of children in other areas
This report has been endorsed in principle by the Essex Safeguarding Children's Board, therefore the findings and recommendations can be taken forward within the constraints of available resources. The project team will continue to work with partners to further understand and develop the recommendations to ensure that an achievable response can be made to these very vulnerable families. The report is due to go to the Essex Safeguarding Adult Board before the end of this calendar year.
NEW PARTNERS: The Training Effect
We are now partners with The Training Effect...watch this space
A range of drug, alcohol, mental health, sexual health training programmes delivered by trainers with frontline expertise
Conference on Complex Families
Today we ran a conference for over 200 people on developing strengthening complex families approaches. You can download presentations from DfE, Matthew Scott, Family Recovery Project, Families First and M-PACT. 95% rated the presentations as "Good" or "Excellent".
Evaluation of Child's Best Friend
We have just begun a 1 year research evaluation of the Child's Best Friend project, based on Pet Therapy evidence
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY ABOUT TONIC
MARK COOPER, DEPUTY HEAD OF THE ALCOHOL STRATEGY UNIT, HOME OFFICE
For the last 14 months, Matthew has worked for the Home Office to deliver a new mandatory code for alcohol retailers. He has been involved at all stages from project management, developing and delivering a large scale consultation exercise, briefing ministers and developing new legislation.
This has been a high profile and highly contentious area of work and Matthew has skilfully handled a range of differing views from a number of Government Departments as well as a wide range of non-Governmental stakeholders representing all sides of the argument.
Matthew has always demonstrated an ability to bring all required work in on time and to an excellent standard – often in challenging circumstances and to short deadlines. Matthew has worked extremely well with the existing team and I have been very satisfied by all of his work, which was successfully completed in April when the new legislation took effect. It has been a pleasure to work with Matthew and I would not hesitate to recommend him for any future work.
SALLY HILLS, COMMISSIONING MANAGER, ESSEX COUNTY COUNCIL
Essex Young People's Joint Commissioning Group commissioned Tonic Consultants in 2009 to undertake a research project around young people's dual diagnosis needs and to produce a set of recommendations that would inform future commissioning decisions within CAMHS services. Matthew Scott and his colleagues at Tonic were always focused and professional in their approach to the project, they developed a realistic work plan to fit the project timeframe and would regularly confirm that the project direction continued to be satisfactory.
The team engaged with all partners including young people & practitioners in a creative and flexible way, facilitating focus groups, attending formal meetings and designing on-line surveys. The team produced a highly professional and high quality end product that continues to be used by the partnership to inform decisions and needs assessments. Tonic have also delivered 16 days multi-agency training on Hidden Harm across the partnership. The feedback I have received has been extremely positive, with comments about the professionalism and knowledgeable approach of the trainer and also that although the subject is serious the day was really enjoyable and engaging. I would not hesitate to recommend Tonic Consultants for future work as the team are highly motivated, trustworthy and professional that can be left to deliver a high quality product.
CHRIS FLUSKEY, MANAGER, HARLOW EDUCATION CONSORTIUM
As Manager of the Harlow Education Consortium, an incorporated partnership of all 40 schools in the town of Harlow, with links to Harlow College (the main post 16 provider) and the Harlow Childrenʼs Centre Network (6 original Sure Start Centres), I have worked closely in the last year with TONIC on two successful applications / bids to the DCSF – one a Targeted Mental Health in Schools pilot (value £220k) and one a Child Poverty / Improving Support for Separating Parents (value £450k).
My Management Board and I think very highly of the quality of work TONIC undertook in regard to both applications. It is relatively easy to find consultancy which is adept at bid writing, but what TONIC were able to offer was a high level of expertise in the relevant fields and the ability to carry out in-depth research thoroughly and efficiently and make detailed recommendations. I always found TONIC willing to react quickly, to keep constantly in touch and to have high professional standards. Towards deadline times, they frequently went the extra mile, working late into the night and at weekends to complete tasks.
Besides having high professional standards, I also formed the view that TONIC actually cared about the ʻproductʼ i.e. they genuinely werenʼt just interested in completing the commission well but wanting to ensure that the eventual implementation would have positive impact on children, young people and their families. From the point of view of someone whose background has been 35 years in teaching and the last 20 years as a Secondary School Headteacher, it was pleasing to work with consultants who, in my view, had a genuine interest in improving life chances for the most vulnerable and at risk young people in society.
My organisation recommends TONIC unreservedly to any public, private and voluntary organisations seeking professional consultancy support.
JANE HARPER-SMITH, DIRECTOR OF COMMISSIONING, ESSEX COUNTY COUNCIL
On behalf of everyone please can I thank you and your team for a great piece of work. We are delighted with the final report and now await with anticipation the outcome. Either way this will be a very useful document to inform future commissioning decisions.
ROSS CAWS, COMMISSIONING MANAGER, WARWICKSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
I am writing to thank Tonic for the consultation with young people that you conducted, and the resulting report. Al the project objectives have been met and the recommendations provide a clear direction for improving the young person’s substance misuse service. The recommendations provide low-cost solutions to the barriers identified. These range from profile changes that can be achieve quickly (e.g. website presence), to longer term changes to the service model.
I am grateful for the wide-ranging analysis of issues, including the marketing of the service, service processes, current performance and the joint working with other services supporting young people. We are very pleased with the qualitative feedback provided by 64 young people and are confident of the conclusions drawn. The report has been written to a high standard, with each main findings clearly evidenced and linked to a recommendation and expected outcome. All recommendations in this report will be addressed.
Overall, I am grateful for the professionalism with which the consultation has been carried out and the quality of the final report. I am confident that if we implement the recommendations we will further improve our services for young people in Warwickshire.
ANDREW BROWN, DRUG EDUCATION FORUM & MENTOR UK
The Drug Education Forum found working with Tonic a stimulating and fruitful experience. Our mutual expertise in the field added real depth to the outcome of our work.
We were impressed by the way that Tonic was able to respond as the project developed. And we were grateful to Matthew and Tim for coming to a seminar we organised to discuss the findings from their research.
Speaking at Alcohol Conference
Matthew Scott will be giving a speech at The Alcohol and Young People Summit 2010 in Central London. Click here for more details
Cornwall CAMHS development work
We recently participated in work to improve CAMHS provision in Cornwall, which culminated in an event on 1st July
New licensing conditions for alcohol retailers
New licensing conditions came into force today as part of the mandatory code for alcohol retailers. This is accompanied by 2 new pieces of guidance.
Click here for the guidance on the conditions: http://www.alcoholconcern.org.uk/assets/files/New%20mandatory%20licensing%20conditions%20-%20Home%20Office%20April%202010.pdf
Consulting with young people in Warwickshire
We have begun our consultation with young people in Warwickshire about substance misuse. This work will inform future commissioning and service development.
Mandatory Alcohol Code published
Home Office has published the response to the consultation on the mandatory code for alcohol retailers. Tonic were involved in delivering this project. For the full reports published, follow this link