March 2026 - newsletter - Families First Partnership programme

What is the Families First Partnership Programme?

The Families First Partnership Programme is a major government initiative to transform how children and families receive support in England. Our main goal is to help more families stay together safely and help children thrive. We do this by providing early, joined-up, and family-focused support to prevent crises and improve long-term outcomes.

We want to build a system where professionals from social work, police, health, and education work together as one team. This means families get consistent, holistic support that adapts to their changing needs. We will do this by having an integrated Front Door: A single referral route for all family help, including multi-agency triage and proportionate response. Family Help Teams with Family Help Lead Practitioner that are QSW and differently qualified professionals supporting families and children end to end with one single assessment; Family Group Decision Making (FGDM):

Empowering families, who know themselves best, to contribute to their own solutions. Multi-Agency Child Protection Teams (MACPT): Co-located teams providing expertise, reflection and practice support to significant harm, with shared accountability

Website and surveys

Our Families First website is live! Please visit for updates, resources, families feedback and to take part in our staff survey.

Please do start visiting it regularly as we will be adding more information as things move forward. The feedback is for you to tell us what you want or need. Do also use the parents / carers and children feedback to ask them what they need and support their voice being heard https://families.stoke.gov.uk/familyfirst.

Families First teams background:

The Families First teams background has now launched! Please add this to your backgrounds on your team meetings!

Q&A sessions are continuing over the next few months

Q&A sessions are continuing across the next few months. Please see dates for these below. If you would like the link to joint he next session please contact familiesfirst@stoke.gov.uk

• 11th March 5:30-6:30pm
• 20th March 1-2pm
• 3rd April 1-2pm
• 17th April 1-2pm

Have your say on what the Single Assessment looks like:

If anyone wants to ask families or children for their thoughts, please do review the single assessment with them. Or please do share in your organisation, any feedback will be greatly appreciated. This is just a first draft! Stoke-on-Trent Single Assessment DRAFT

This link is a Microsoft form of all the questions. In the response section you can comment on the question/wording. These
responses will come back to us and be a great way to hear what you think.

Introduction to our partners:

Meet Yasmin, the Police FFPP lead

Hi, I’m Yasmin, and I lead the Families First Programme within Staffordshire Police. My role focuses on strengthening how Police work alongside partner agencies, from universal support through to the statutory child protection space. Supporting consistent practice, improving pathways, and ensuring our collaborative approach to working with children and families is clear, coordinated, and effective. I really enjoy bringing teams together and developing practical solutions that strengthen practice both within the Police and across the wider multi‑agency system. Outside of work, I love planning holidays, exploring new places, and enjoying good food with friends and family.

Progress currently taking place:

Progress has been happening in a number of different areas including:

• We are starting to redesign out Integrated Front Door with co-location
• We are working with partners to agree what the team around the family will look like
• We have a draft single assessment that we are seeking your thoughts on
• We are talking to lots of different organisations and people to share our vision and to understand how to deliver it.

Thank you for reading this newsletter. For any questions or queries about anything in the newsletter, please contact familiesfirst@stoke.gov.uk