Troubled Families

The Troubled Families programme is a UK Government scheme under the Department for Communities and Local Government with the stated aim of helping troubled families turn their lives around.

The Troubled Families programme was launched by the Prime Minister in 2011. Louise Casey became Director General, Troubled Families on 1 November 2011. The programme initially intends to change the repeating generational patterns of poor parenting, abuse, violence, drug use, anti-social behaviour and crime in the most troubled families in the UK, with the government investing some £4,000 per family over 3 years, and each family having an assigned family worker. Troubled families are defined as those that have problems and cause problems to the community around them, putting high costs on the public sector. The aim is to get 120,000 troubled families in England turn their lives around by 2015 and in particular to:

Mental health problems are often found in such families. David Cameron summarised the nature of the families in his Oldbury speech (New Statesman, 15.12.11) saying

'...these families are the source of a large proportion of the problems in society. Drug addiction. Alcohol abuse. Crime. A culture of disruption and irresponsibility that cascades down the generations... a small number of these families cost an extraordinary amount of money. Last year £9 billion was spent on 120,000 families'.

Although the TFP was supposedly aimed at intensive support the political rhetoric was often pejorative.Louise Casey, the 'Troubled Families Tsar' told the Daily Telegraph (20.07.12)

'We are not running some cuddly social workers programme...we should be talking about things like shame and guilt...we have lost the ability to be judgmental because we worry about being seen as nasty to poor people'.

Eric Pickles, communities minister, told the Daily Mail (10.06.12)

'We have sometimes run away from categorising, stigmatising, laying blame. We need a less understanding approach'.

However most of the people targeted were not involved in crime or anti-social behaviour; most were not alcohol or drug dependent.Most were poor,unemployed and with very high levels of mental / physical illnesses and disabilities in adults and children which resulted in high state support costs (see characteristics section). It is unclear how assertive, non-negotiable intervention and benefit sanctions can eliminate these costs.The evidence for long term success in 'turning around the families' is absent and on 12.06.14 Casey told a meeting at Reform

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