Working with Families: Messages for Policy and Practice from an Evaluation of a School-Based Project

In 2002 the authors evaluated a family support project known as Working with Families managed by the Children's Society and located in a primary school on a large, mainly white council estate in Rochdale. Our reflections on some of the issues which emerged in relation to basing family support services in a school setting seem timely in the light of the apparent growth in such services as a result of investment by the Children's Fund, and the proposals in the Green Paper, Every Child Matters, (Department for Education and Skills, 2003a) that schools should play a key role in the delivery of support services. Our experience of one such project is offered as a contribution to ongoing policy and practice developments. We highlight the strengths and difficulties of delivering support services from school settings and we offer some thoughts on whether integrated services which tackle children's needs can be delivered from schools.