Whole Family Wellbeing Funding Programme templates: year 3 analysis - 2024-2025

Annex 1: Case studies

Edinburgh

This case study explores how Edinburgh is utilising Whole Family Wellbeing Funding (WFWF) to embed trauma-informed practice within holistic whole family support. It is based on information provided in Edinburgh’s Year 3 WFWF template and a follow-up interview with a member of the Whole Family Wellbeing team at the City of Edinburgh Council.

Background

Through WFWF, Edinburgh has funded six transformational whole family wellbeing collaborations:

• The Family Hub, which supports families whose children are not yet in early learning or childcare settings.
• Time to Talk, a collaborative youth work initiative which supports young people's mental health and wellbeing.
• Edinburgh Disability and Neurodiversity Hub, a multi-agency service which supports families with children and young people with disabilities or who are neurodivergent.
• Parent Infant Partnership, which provides targeted support to families with infants where risk or need is high.
• Parent-Led Childcare, which supports the development of community-led after-school clubs across Edinburgh.
• Umbrella Hubs, community pop-ups which provide access to advice, emotional support and local services for children, young people and families.

In addition, a central WFWF team is in post to oversee and deliver activity. The team is made up of a WFWF Lead, a trauma coordinator, four local coordinators, three business support roles, a participation officer and a reporting analyst.

Throughout Year 3 of WFWF, Edinburgh has taken steps to embed the principles of trauma-informed practice across all levels of service delivery.

The introduction of a trauma coordinator

In 2025, a dedicated trauma coordinator was recruited to Edinburgh’s WFWF team to identify and respond to workforce training needs, upskill practitioners, and help to make services more accessible and responsive to families’ needs. The trauma coordinator has also taken steps to address the challenges involved in systems level change. For example, the coordinator has helped the WFWF team to identify and address some of the systemic barriers to embedding trauma-informed practice across services.

“We’re getting a real understanding of why it stalled prior. [Trauma-informed practice] can't just be fully practitioner supported, you know? Practitioners could do an amazing job, but what if they work in an organisation or a system that isn't allowing them to practice in that way? Our trauma coordinator is looking at, organisationally, what do people need? And that is things like supporting walkthroughs and reflective spaces, but also systems-based trauma, thinking about things like what our customer services look like.”

The WFWF team is now applying a trauma lens to their work and has developed a “Good Conversations” guide and a Getting It Right for Families input, which have been distributed to different teams. These resources provide guidance on active listening, how to approach families in an accessible way and how to connect families with the support that they need.

Reflective spaces have also been established for team leaders and senior managers, with the intention of supporting organisational change and addressing systemic barriers to trauma-informed practice. This includes consideration of how processes such as social work investigations can be managed in ways that minimise additional stress for staff and families.

Workforce development

Edinburgh has invested in staff training to build a more trauma-informed and trauma skilled workforce. While initial efforts focused on Level 1 and Level 2 trauma training through NES, a need was identified for more advanced, intensive upskilling for practitioners working with families with complex needs. As a result, enhanced trauma training was rolled out to these practitioners, with additional, ongoing reflective coaching to support the practical application of trauma-informed approaches in day-to-day delivery.

“We are mostly focusing on the skilled and supported workforce so that we can get it cascaded as far as we possibly can… we want everybody to feel as though they can come in, they're welcome, that the parents feel safe, the children feel safe and then they can access services. Essentially it's to make sure the parents can feel stable and supported so in turn they can do that for their children.”

A successful parent panel

Edinburgh’s commitment to trauma-informed practice extends beyond upskilling frontline staff. Another key aspect of the trauma coordinator’s work has involved the development of a parent panel, which provides a structured format for parents to inform service design by sharing their experiences of accessing support. The panel has become a monthly forum for consultation and reflection, with high levels of engagement from a diverse range of parents across the city.

The panel includes a pilot activity based on Solihull approaches, supporting parents to understand their own trauma. This has allowed parents to contribute in co-delivery roles and develop their own skills, with the intention of using this as a form of pre intervention support in future.

Conversations with the panel focus on what accessing services feels like and the enablers and barriers to engagement, with insight feeding into wider system changes. For example, the panel has contributed to changes in the neurodiversity pathway, and a few parents created a detailed mapping of all their service contacts, which was submitted to the council to inform the new preventative strategy.

“We try to see it as your lived expertise, not your lived experience. You don't have to tell us everything about your story, but let's pick out what's shareable. And they're getting really good at that, now they can see where it's useful for someone else.”

Single Point of Access

Edinburgh’s WFWF team has created a centralised Single Point of Access for referrals to mental health support. The aim of this is for children and young people’s mental health needs to be identified and appropriately responded to earlier to prevent escalation of needs to a more acute level. The Single Point of Access facilitates pathways to a range of preventative support including systemic therapy, family group decision making and CAMHS, and has connected 291 children, young people and families to immediate supports.

The Single Point of Access also provides a streamlined process which helps families avoid repetitive retelling of difficult or traumatic experiences. To support this, local coordinators have been funded by WFWF to support the Single Point of Access, helping to ensure that referrals feel more personal and less bureaucratic.

“In terms of being trauma-informed, it's about how quick and streamlined we can make this, where the story's not being shared, we don't need to be sitting with 20 people listening to this family's issue. And there's a bit more depth to that referral, the local coordinators phone the family and then meet them, they don't sit with an assessment form, they talk through it and hear their story, they find out what's really important to them. It’s about what is helping you feel fit and stable in terms of your parenting when you're in crisis, and the local coordinators do it in a really understanding, getting it right for families way.”

East Dunbartonshire

This case study explores how East Dunbartonshire is utilising Whole Family Wellbeing Funding (WFWF) to build an inclusive holistic whole family support system which is shaped by the needs of children, young people and families. It is based on information provided in East Dunbartonshire’s Year 3 WFWF template and a follow-up interview with staff involved in East Dunbartonshire’s WFWF activity.

Background

In East Dunbartonshire, a multi-agency Strategic Working Group oversees the programme of WFWF activity, bringing together local authority, health and third-sector partners to coordinate interventions linked to WFWF. The strategic group reports to the local Children’s Service Partnership (DCYPP). As of Year 3, WFWF activity is delivered through four subgroups:

• Third Sector Supports subgroup, which leads commissioning and development of third sector supports within the community.
• Training Subgroup, which coordinates training opportunities offered as part of WFWF.
• Child Inclusion Research into Curriculum Learning and Education (CIRCLE) implementation subgroup, which leads on work providing practical strategies to support the underlying skills that pupils require to enable them to participate in school.
• Whole Family Wellbeing Hub development subgroup, leading work within a local community Hub offering support to local families with a range of different needs.

Throughout Year 3, East Dunbartonshire has focused on workforce development, multi-agency collaboration and engagement with families to ensure that family support is inclusive and tailored to the needs of children, young people and families.

Workforce development

East Dunbartonshire has invested in workforce development across different services to create a skilled workforce capable of delivering holistic whole family support. In Year 3, the dedicated Training Subgroup coordinated a broad programme of professional development for staff in education, social work, health and third sector roles. This included training in:

• Non-Violent Resistance (NVR): an evidence-based programme helping practitioners support parents and carers in managing challenging behaviour in children and young people.
• Talking Mats: a visual communication tool to enable children (especially those with communication difficulties or neurodiversity) to express their views.
• Sleep Awareness: training delivered by Sleep Action to equip practitioners with strategies to help families struggling with children’s sleep issues.

Training opportunities have been offered via a shared multi-agency calendar, which means they are open to professionals from different services working with children and families. Upskilling a broad base of practitioners has helped staff to build relationships across services and embed learning across the local authority.

“Cross-agency working is bringing real strengths for the training, and hopefully those relationships add to the future sustainability because you're developing practitioner skills across the authority, not just in Education, Health or local area coordination… it's starting to have a really wide impact, not just to one group.”

East Dunbartonshire has also introduced ongoing support to help practitioners to apply new skills. This includes Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) for those who have completed training, creating peer support groups where staff share experiences of using NVR or Talking Mats in real cases. Through regular PLC meetings and follow-up evaluation (drawing on the Kirkpatrick model^[12] of training effectiveness), practitioners have gained confidence to implement the new approaches they have learned.

“We’re starting to see real impact, particularly for Talking Mats and NVR, in terms of practitioners' confidence to say, ‘this is an approach that's going to be successful and we're going to use it.’ We're seeing the Talking Mats coming through coordinated support plans or applications for specialist placement where people's views are captured more effectively.”

There is evidence showing that training has helped to improve the support available for local families with diverse needs. For example, one practitioner reflected on the impact that Sleep Awareness Training has had on the practitioners and families involved.

“It’s been amazing to see them develop their skills and also the impact that they're having on families, being able to work really closely with families in terms of looking at their sleep, put in a programme in place and then evaluating that. I think that that's only going to continue to improve families' journeys and outcomes for families, particularly in relation to sleep for neurodivergent children.”

Engagement with children, young people and families

East Dunbartonshire’s WFWF activity has placed children, young people and families at the heart of service design. Feedback gathered from various engagement exercises, such as work with parents, schools and the local Champions Board, has shaped the projects funded by WFWF. For example, families highlighted challenges related to accessing support for neurodiversity, school avoidance, and mental health, and these themes have become focus areas for new services.

Young people have also played a key role in the commissioning process for third sector services in East Dunbartonshire. The young people involved reviewed the bids, sharing their views on the different projects and highlighting the ones they saw most value in. It was noted that they favoured bids with direct impact on issues like drugs, alcohol or misogyny, reflecting a desire to address these issues at an early stage.

“When it comes to making the final decisions on funding, hearing that input from young people makes it so much easier because we've got that evidence to say, these are the projects that matter to them and what they can see having the biggest impact. I think a really great part of the project has been that involvement from the young people and families.”

Feedback from families also contributed to the expansion of the remit of the local area coordination team. Traditionally, the core team has worked with individuals aged 14 and over who have already received an autism diagnosis, supporting their transition from secondary school to the next stage of life. However, through ongoing engagement with families, the team identified and addressed a gap in provision for younger people who are still on the waiting list.

Inclusive holistic whole family support

East Dunbartonshire’s WFWF programme has delivered a diverse portfolio of supports to local families. Many aspects of this work focus on inclusivity and targeting families who might otherwise find it difficult to access support.

For example, East Dunbartonshire has funded Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol & Drugs to establish a community food bank led by young people who are affected by a family member’s substance use. Young people have been recruited to help decorate, stock and operate the pantry, gaining work experience and accredited volunteer awards in the process.

“The Routes project is a really interesting one because it's really strongly led by young people's voice. They're running a food bank for families impacted by substance use, but they're employing 12 young people who are at risk of not having a positive destination to run the food bank.”

Feedback throughout the process has helped to identify creative solutions to barriers faced by young people affected by a family member’s substance use. For example, feedback from Routes participants indicated that some were anxious about returning to school for the beginning of term without having had a haircut or having bought new clothes.

“It’s what the majority of families have, but for families living in that particular cohort, they were saying, ‘we don't have that, and that's a barrier to us attending school because we look different to everybody else.’”

In response to this, the service has organised for some of the young people to be trained in hairdressing, and is looking to introduce a clothing bank element into the project.

Stirling

This case study explores how Stirling is utilising Whole Family Wellbeing Funding (WFWF) to strengthen prevention and early intervention and keep families together. It is based on information provided in Stirling’s Year 3 WFWF template and a follow-up interview with staff involved in WFWF implementation in Stirling.

Background

In Stirling, a multi-agency Partnership Steering Group oversees the programme of WFWF activity, bringing together local authority, health and third-sector partners to coordinate services and develop shared referral pathways. An executive group of senior leaders, including the Chief Social Work Officer, Chief Education Officer, NHS representatives and the local Third Sector Interface, makes funding decisions, ensuring WFWF initiatives are aligned with broader partnership priorities.

In Year 3, WFWF has funded 12 activities in Stirling, including:

• The Family Wellbeing Team, a multi-agency team offering intensive support to families on the edge of needing statutory intervention.
• The Housing First for Families Support Service, delivered by a dedicated housing support worker who helps vulnerable families sustain tenancies and avoid homelessness.
• The Family Flexible Fund, for families facing financial hardships to enable them to access leisure activities in the holidays that support whole family wellbeing.

Stirling’s WFWF activity forms part of the CSPP’s strategic shift towards prevention and early intervention in service delivery, which aims to strengthen specialist help to reduce demand on compulsory intervention.

Preventing crisis and keeping families together

Stirling’s WFWF funding has been used to develop a range of family support interventions, with a key priority to provide targeted support to families in crisis or those who are ‘only just coping’. WFWF activity in Stirling is structured around several linked projects designed to provide practical and emotional support at an earlier stage, before issues escalate into crises.

A key component of this work has been the creation of the Family Wellbeing Team; a multi-agency group of professionals that provides tailored, strengths-based support wrapped around each family’s needs. Additional projects have been established with specific areas of expertise, such as the Housing First Family Support Worker, who supports families experiencing homelessness or at risk of returning to homelessness. These targeted interventions recognise the instability and stress associated with insecure housing and the potential for this to lead to crisis.

A prominent theme across Stirling’s WFWF activity was the drive to prevent family crises and avoid unnecessary family breakdown. Across the programme, Stirling has prioritised filling gaps in early intervention support for families on the edge of care, with partners across Stirling using WFWF to reduce the need for statutory measures and help children thrive within their own families.

There are encouraging signs that these efforts are keeping more children at home and out of care. While attributing causation is complex, data collected by the CSPP indicates positive impacts and improvements for families supported by WFWF.

“Families are now getting support where they may have only had universal services to support them before. We have put in this ‘in between’ that means that families are getting support and we have the evidence to see the number of families that have been positively impacted. We have it anecdotally and we know that works well, from practitioners and families themselves.”

“We've got some really clear data on the impact that it's been having on those families and we have a few really key examples where that input and support has prevented the family from needing statutory involvement.”

Using flexible approaches to overcome challenges and maximise impact

As part of its WFWF programme of work, Stirling established the Community Childminding project, a service providing short-term childminding placements to families in need of immediate respite or extra support. The aim of the project was to offer families a form of short-term respite to prevent crisis and support them to remain together. However, due to challenges in finding specialist childminders able to provide overnight or weekend cover, the capacity of the service has been limited.

“Our initial aim was to create a childminder support which would provide support to families on the edge of care when they most needed it. The hope was that this could offer overnight and weekend support where required. It was more difficult than anticipated to find childminders with this availability but we did manage to find one childminder who was able to be registered for overnight and weekend care who has supported a number of families. She was so successful in this role that she has now become a full-time foster carer.”

Although the Community Childminding project has not fully reached its originally planned scale, the project has taken a flexible approach to delivery and provided meaningful and impactful support to the families involved. For example:

• Childminders have supported families on the edge of care by enabling parents to attend therapy or other essential services.
• Although initial support is typically offered for 12 weeks, this has been extended in some cases based on need.
• In instances where no suitable childminders have been available, the team has sought alternative solutions, including commissioning nursery places or youth work services to address emerging need.

“As we have not always been able to find a suitable childminder in the right place with the right availability we have had to find creative ways to best meet needs. We have used nursery places, out of school provision and a youth services worker has delivered activities to older children. It’s been great to be flexible and adaptive with this project to best meet the needs of the individual child and the needs of the family. It's been a flexible project, but a successful one.”

In light of the project’s recurring recruitment challenges, a decision was made to cease the Community Childminding service in its current form. Instead, Stirling will shift to a model of commissioning childminding or nursery placements on a case-by-case basis as a short-term intervention for families in crisis.

Supporting families in rural communities

Stirling is a geographically diverse area, encompassing both urban centres and remote rural villages. One challenge that the CSPP has faced is ensuring that support is available to families in rural areas, where access to services is more limited and need can be less visible. To address these needs, Stirling has funded outreach activity designed to strengthen early intervention in these communities.

One example of this is allocation of funding to enable nursery nurses within the Health Visiting team to deliver sessions for families living in rural areas with children under the age of two. These sessions focus on early child development, nutrition, play, feeding and other key areas that support parents in the early stages of their child’s life. The groups also act as an entry point into wider support services, with health visitors involving other partners such as income maximisation staff or oral health teams depending on the needs emerging within each group.

This work was described as particularly valuable given the level of isolation experienced in some rural areas of Forth Valley. Practitioners highlighted that this approach helps address issues at an earlier stage, preventing escalation and reducing the risk of families reaching crisis point.

“Forth Valley communities are diverse, especially within the Stirling area which has both urban and rural areas…Previously the Health Visiting teams did not have a community group-based offer in the rural areas. As this is an area where we identified significant isolation that was impacting on a whole family’s overall wellbeing, the financial support offered by the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund(ing) has been instrumental in addressing gaps in provision.”

Perth & Kinross

This case study explores how Perth & Kinross’ investment in workforce development is enhancing whole family wellbeing. It is based on information provided in Perth & Kinross’ Year 3 Whole Family Wellbeing Funding (WFWF) template and a follow-up interview with staff involved in WFWF implementation.

Background In Perth & Kinross, the Whole Family Wellbeing Oversight Group provides ongoing oversight of the WFWF programme. Five specific workstream subgroups bring together key statutory and third sector partners to progress individual sections of work, addressing key components of the WFWF Logic Model:

• Access and availability
• Engagement
• Service delivery
• Systems and leadership
• Support for the workforce

In Year 3, WFWF has funded six activities in Perth & Kinross across key themes, including creating infrastructure for holistic whole family support, establishing local need through consultation with families and communities, and developing improved availability of and access to web-based information.

Enabling whole-person support through workforce training

Working in partnership with council and third sector colleagues, WFWF has been used to fund a range of initiatives that aim to provide holistic support for families, increasing wellbeing and reducing crises and emergencies.

A challenge was identified in linking services together and enabling the workforce to link families with the most appropriate service for their situation. In response to this, Perth Citizens Advice Bureau was commissioned to develop and deliver ‘Support and Connect’ training, which has involved the development of a social needs screening tool and training activities, both of which support professionals to have conversations about unmet needs and to connect families to the support they need.

The ‘Support’ element refers to training the workforce in social needs screening and in how to have conversations to identify whole-person support. Training takes place weekly, over three and a half days, allowing participants to enact and reflect between sessions, returning to the group to report back on and discuss learning.

The first session introduces the screening tool and involves participants mapping the typical journey that families take through their service; this helps staff recognise what is already working well, where gaps exist, and how early conversations can shape more effective support. Participants then learn about the five social needs pathways: financial insecurity, housing instability, personal development, wellbeing, and safety.

The second session focuses on the practicalities of holding sensitive conversations, with role‑play exercises and facilitated peer discussion. As many of the participants have limited experience raising topics such as financial distress or safety concerns, facilitators focus on creating a safe and supportive training environment where staff can practise language, explore emotional barriers, and prepare for any difficult conversations they may have in the future.

“We go over what are the challenges and the hurdles that they're going to have, because some people have never talked about money, some people have never talked about safety - what are the challenges there and how do we then overcome the challenges?”

The third session moves on to the ‘Connect’ aspect of the training, helping participants to understand how to identify appropriate support, make effective referrals, and manage the handover in a way that promotes trust and continuity for families.

Training has been attended by a diverse and wide range of participants, including third sector, public sector, housing officers, tenancy support workers, employability workers, and Citizens Advice Bureau staff. Training has also been targeted at professionals outwith traditional statutory or third sector support services. This has provided a safe space and support to discuss challenges in working with clients, as well as access to peer support networks not necessarily provided through their employment.

“We've even had someone who runs their own cleaning company on it because she was going in and doing a lot of kind of hoarding clearances and stuff like that. So she'd come across the training and we thought, gosh, she's getting a lot of referrals from housing offices and housing associations. So, because she's maybe one of the first people to have ventured into the home, which can be in a bit of a… well, you can imagine what it's like if you're going into a hoarding home, that actually was really beneficial for her to be able to have these conversations.”

Training responsive to community and organisational need

An important factor in the success of ‘Support and Connect’ training has been its ability to respond and tailor the training to its participants. While training sessions are underpinned by a core set of learning outcomes, content evolves based on feedback from participants and emerging local needs. For example, discussions around the ‘safety and security’ pathway have expanded beyond their original scope in response to rising concerns about community safety from participants.

“The safety and security question started about safety in the home, but it's now become about safety in the community. And I think with what's happening in our communities around division, particularly those from black and ethnic minority backgrounds, this has become really pertinent to start having these conversations. So even the way that the questions can keep up with what's going on and the trends that are going on in society has been really, really powerful.”

Multi-agency connection through the FORT system

The ‘Connect’ aspect of the programme is supported by the FORT case management system: a secure, web‑based referral management platform. WFWF has supported the development and expansion of FORT, including its integrated service directory that spans third sector, local authority, and NHS partners.

FORT allows referrals to be made quickly and securely between organisations, and allows staff to track progress, which helps avoid referrals being lost or delayed. The system encourages practitioners to directly connect families to sources of support instead of signposting or passing on contact details, which helps build relationships between agencies and provides a more holistic and joined up approach to family support.

“You can start to see these beautiful pathways of referrals starting to come between organisations. We know obviously that there's good partnerships already out there and routes that are being used quite regularly. This builds on that, but then it also helps other partners to see what's out there and to refer in between.”

“There's now over 77 organisations or services on the system which is fantastic. We have NHS, we've got local authority partners and third sector partners and that allows everybody to refer and try and break down those silos a wee bit.”

Importance of leadership buy-in

Piloting the ‘Support and Connect’ initiative has led to further learning about the importance of leadership buy-in in enabling the workforce to engage with these systems and processes for more effective whole systems support. There are now plans to develop ‘Support and Connect’ leadership training, where team leads and managers will work with Citizens Advice Bureau on values, strategy, service design, change management and skills development. Funding is now in place for this to be launched in 2026.

In devising training for leaders, discussions have also taken place on the importance of resources and support for members of the workforce who might be dealing with sensitive, emotionally distressing issues. For example, housing officers or reception staff may not be trained or prepared for disclosures of domestic abuse, child neglect, or acute distress, yet find themselves supporting individuals in crisis.

This has led to recognition that clear referral pathways must be accompanied by clear wellbeing support pathways for staff and practitioners themselves.