Turning 120,000 troubled families around

4Children is the national charity which runs Sure Start Children`s Centres as well as family and youth services across Britain. They are the Government`s strategic partner for early years and co-produce policy with the Department of Education. It is no surprise therefore that 4Children finds an important place for their services in the `early interventions` approach approved by the Government.

Commenting on the charge from the Public Accounts committee that the Government are not going to be `turning around` 120,000 troubled families by 2015 Anne Longfield, Chief Executive of 4Children, still backed the idea:

The Troubled Families Programme is an important programme which has the potential to transform the lives of some of the most vulnerable families in the country who have multiple, complex needs.

Without clarifying what is meant by turning a family around, she goes on to say that it is not clear how many families have been `turned around`. "The Government needs to publish the results in the interests of transparency."

The Troubled families programme needs to be at the heart of local programmes for change for families and communities. Families are helped best when services and professionals, including social services, health, housing and Job Centre Plus, work closely together to provide the joined-up and personalised support that families need.

http://www.4children.org.uk/News/Detail/4Children-comment-on-Public-Accounts-Committee-report-on-Troubled-Families-Programme 

In `Removal as Class War` Portes reveals the official definition of a `troubled family`. It is one with at least 5 of these 7 features

(a) no parent in work (b) poor quality housing, (c) no parent with qualifications, (d) mother with mental health problems (e) one parent with longstanding disability/illness (f) family has low income, (g) family cannot afford some food/clothing items’. 

He observes, ‘… none of these criteria, in themselves, have anything at all to do with disruption, irresponsibility, or crime. Drug addiction and alcohol abuse are also absent. A family which meets 5 of these criteria is certainly disadvantaged. Almost certainly poor. But a source of wider social problems? Maybe, but maybe not – and certainly not as a direct consequence. In other words, the "troubled families" in the Prime Minister’s speech are not necessarily "neighbours from hell" at all. They are poor.’  

http://www.fassit.co.uk/pdf/child-removal-as-class-war.pdf 

Professor Ruth Levitas in `There may be `Trouble` Ahead: What we know about those 120,000 `Troubled` families` has said: 
 

… Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is reported as saying: ‘120,000 families are a big problem for this country. If you live near one you know very well who they are.’ …  The original research on which these figures are based is a report for the Social Exclusion Task Force. ...in the survey the actual numbers of families with five or more of these disadvantages was very small and the figure assumes an accuracy that is spurious:

As we have seen, ‘troubled families’ discursively collapses ‘families with troubles’ and ‘troublesome families’, while simultaneously implying that they are dysfunctional as families. This discursive strategy is successful in feeding vindictive attitudes to the poor.

Read the full PSE paper: There may be 'Trouble' Ahead: What We Know About Those 120,000 'Troubled' Families, by Ruth Levitas.