Child poverty pathfinders in Dundee and Glasgow: phase two evaluation

4. Dundee: Impacts for families

Introduction

The chapter considers evidence relating to outputs and short- and medium-term outcomes for families, as identified in the theory of change, including:

• Outputs: value of grants or benefits obtained for families
• Short-term outcomes: immediate / basic needs addressed
• Medium-term outcomes: families are more willing and able to engage with wider services; have increased hope/goals for the future; experience improvements in immediate material circumstances (e.g. increased income from benefits; outgoings reduced); as well as in other wider capabilities (e.g. improved social connectedness; mental health; wider wellbeing; better access to childcare / respite care, etc.).

While the focus of this evaluation was on short- to medium-term outcomes, the chapter also considers whether there is evidence of families moving towards longer-term outcomes and goals, including:

• New or improved sustainable employment
• Financial, social and emotional stability, and
• Empowerment, resilience and lower reliance on services.

Data and limitations

This chapter draws on information from the monitoring data as well as qualitative data from professionals and parents. In addition to the limitations to the monitoring data, discussed in chapter 2, the following limitations should also be kept in mind.

• First, without a control group, it is not clear to what extent any quantitative outcomes recorded can be attributed to the pathfinder, or whether some families might have seen similar outcomes without the pathfinder’s support.
• Second, qualitative interviews with parents provide valuable insights into how and why the pathfinder has been perceived to make a difference for individual families. However, these insights cannot quantify the number of families with similar experiences or estimate the extent of any financial gains to individual families. More engaged participants may also be over-represented among parents interviewed for the evaluation.
• The views of professionals shared as part of this research provide nuanced insight into whether and how the pathfinder is believed to deliver impacts for families. However, this must be interpreted within the context of differing views on what the pathfinder should be aiming to achieve and over what timeline.

What impacts was the pathfinder aiming to achieve for families?

Depth interviews conducted with professionals for this evaluation found broad agreement that the overall vision set out in chapter 2, “to deliver consistent, trusted, person-centred and place-based support to families to help them improve their social and financial situations and move out of poverty on a sustained basis”, remained the right one for the Dundee pathfinder. However, there was less certainty among professional stakeholders around how the balance between subsidiary goals, aimed at delivering this vision, had shifted over time, and by implication what precisely ‘success’ would look like.

As discussed in chapter 2, the Dundee pathfinder initially had a strong focus on getting families into employment. An early theory of change for the pathfinder suggested that it would aim to get 65% of Linlathen clients into employment in the longer-term. However, engagement with families in Linlathen highlighted the multiple and complex issues many were facing, including immediate housing need, food poverty, caring responsibilities, complex health issues, lack of work experience, and lack of confidence and hope about the future. This was seen by professional stakeholders as a key early learning from the Dundee pathfinder and led the pathfinder to reconceive employment as a longer-term goal for many of the families they were working with.

“There's so many issues that need to be sorted before employment is even looked at still. Like, if you've got someone with bad mental health or stress at home, is a job going to be sustainable? It needs to be at a point where everything's going to be settled down, managing things a bit better before putting them in employment. Because we can put them in employment, we can get them a job in Morrisons, but how sustainable is that going to be? And then you're going to mess up their benefits because then they're going to stop (work). …So, it needs to be at a point where it's going to work for them.”

(Dundee professional interview)

There was a general acknowledgement across professional stakeholders that many of the families the pathfinder was working with did require a different kind of approach to a standard employability programme. However, at the same time concern was expressed that the direction of the pathfinder had shifted its short-term goals significantly since its inception without sufficient discussion or definitive buy-in across all senior strategic partners. This had led to what some perceived as a disconnect between what the Pathfinder has achieved and what some senior partners expected from it.

“There's this constant tussle. When you speak to the [senior stakeholders] you say ‘it’s about more than employability’ and they say ‘yeah yeah, but what are your employability outcomes?’”

(Dundee professional interview)

Indeed, this was evident in other interviews where stakeholders expressed frustration with perceived low numbers of families progressing into employment from the pathfinder.

There was also an ongoing tension, apparent in interviews with different professional stakeholders, over whether employment should remain the ultimate aim for pathfinder families, even if it is accepted that this is a much longer-term goal, or whether the aim for some families should be maximising their income, emotional and social wellbeing outside employment. This was linked to a wider stakeholder question about the extent to which the pathfinder should be seen as an employability initiative. Although ‘tier 3’ of the Scottish Government’s levels of support for moving towards employment does focus on enhancing capabilities and wellbeing (see Scottish Government, 2022), the wider focus of the pathfinder on families’ general wellbeing and financial, social and emotional resilience was seen as raising questions around whether it had evolved into a broader ‘community development’ or ‘social justice’ project, and should be developed and assessed as such, rather than as an employability project.

There was also considerable uncertainty around the timescales over which outcomes for families could be expected. Timescales were described as “the elephant in the room” at an evaluation workshop in December 2023. While short, medium and longer-term outcomes were identified, it proved impossible to attach agreed timescales to these. A lack of certainty or consensus over expected timescales for outcomes remained a theme throughout interviews with professional stakeholders. Several different issues were felt to contribute to this uncertainty:

• Different clients have different needs. While overall, target families, particularly those in the original Linlathen cohort, were considered to face multiple issues, some were closer to being able to move into education or employment than others, so at an individual level the time taken to support clients to a sustainable outcome could be highly variable.
• The first point of contact with clients varies, with some clients having been engaged when the pathfinder first started operating in Linlathen in October 2022 and others much more recently. The monitoring data showed that around 26% had a first recorded contact date in 2022, 62% in 2023, and 11% in 2024.
• The pathfinder offers flexible and open-ended support. There is no fixed time period or expected level of intensity of engagement. This makes it very difficult to estimate how long it should take to achieve particular outcomes: one client might use the drop-in twice, a year apart, before seeking more active support, while another might engage weekly from the outset.

Professional stakeholders again expressed mixed views on whether this completely flexible and open-ended approach was the right one. On the one hand, there was a view that at least some form of open-ended support is necessary to reach positive outcomes for families facing multiple barriers. On the other, it was argued that, although outcomes may take a long time to materialise, the level of support the pathfinder has provided may need to be more time limited from a resourcing perspective. This is discussed in more detail in chapter 6, in the context of value for money.

Impacts: financial situation and benefits

Income from benefits and help with the cost of living are two of the key drivers of child poverty identified in the Scottish Government’s Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan (Scottish Government, 2022). The range of advice and support the pathfinder has provided, or linked families with, relating to benefits and financial support has included:

• Support with applying for, migrating, or updating benefits. 26% of Linlathen and Mid Craigie clients with children were recorded as having been ‘referred’ to Social Security Scotland and 23% to DWP, primarily internal handovers within the key worker team for benefits issues that are best addressed by the key workers from those organisations.
• ‘Better off’ calculations, offered at the drop-in by either Brooksbank Welfare Rights, Council Advice Services, Citizens Advice or DCC Adult Employability team, to calculate whether and by how much better off they would be in work than on benefits. 24% of Linlathen and Mid Craigie clients with children were recorded as having had a better off calculation.
• Referrals to Welfare Rights support. 12% of Linlathen and Mid Craigie clients with children had been referred for further advice on debt and welfare benefits, including income maximisation, benefit advice, and advice and support on debt options, including negotiating with creditors.
• Support to apply for grants or in-kind support, including: grants or goods from various charities aimed at families with children (Aberlour Children’s Charity; ‘Beds for Bairns’; Cash for Kids; Togs for Kids; Toy Appeal); various fuel-related grants, vouchers, and discounts (Citizen’s Advice Fuel support; Fuel Bank; Fuel Well; Home Heating Fund; Warm Home Discount); food parcels and vouchers; and various other charity and government funds (e.g. Citizen’s Advice Sim Cards; Carers Winter Assistance Fund; Scottish Welfare Fund).

Overall, around half of clients (52% of all clients, 46% of Linlathen and Mid Craigie families with children) had been referred for support or advice relating to benefits or finances^[15]. In terms of the outcomes of this advice, the monitoring data indicates that 38 clients have accessed new or additional social security benefits since being in contact with the pathfinder. However, this is considered by the operational team to be an underestimate because the spreadsheet is only accessible by DCC key workers, so may not include the outcome of advice provided by Social Security Scotland or DWP, and key workers are reliant on clients reporting back on benefit gains. At the same time, it has also been suggested that given the profile of Dundee pathfinder clients (including the high proportion on benefits with a ‘no work-related requirement’), it may be that a significant proportion of the clients the pathfinder has supported are already claiming all the benefits they are entitled to.

Qualitative interviews with parents and operational staff include a range of examples where key workers had supported families to claim a variety of new benefits or increase their existing benefits. These included benefits families had struggled to apply for, or to update or migrate to, as well as those they were not previously aware of (identified through benefit checks), highlighting that the pathfinder was not only providing help with increasing income, but in some cases preventing loss of income when families were struggling to navigate the benefit system on their own.

A larger proportion of clients were recorded as having obtained financial support through non-benefit grants or in-kind goods, than the number recoded as receiving new or additional benefits. As key workers were more often directly aware of the outcomes of these referrals (e.g. where they had applied for grants and goods for families), the monitoring data on these non-benefit financial gains was considered more reliable than the data on benefit ‘gains’. Around half (47% of all clients, 55% of Linlathen and Mid Craigie clients with children) had ‘non-benefit gains’ recorded, worth a total value of £250,269 for all clients. The average ‘non-benefit’ gain recorded (across the 598 clients who had any recorded) was £419, rising to £630 for Linlathen and Mid Craigie clients with dependent children.

Other types of financial support and advice received by families through the pathfinder also featured strongly in feedback from parents and staff. While some questions were raised by professional stakeholders over whether families would have accessed these grants anyway, without the pathfinder’s intervention, families interviewed stressed that they were not previously aware that this support was available to them and would not have known how to find out about it, so they felt that the pathfinder had made a real difference to them.

Positive impacts from the support received from the pathfinder with their financial situation mentioned by parents included:

• Being more able to afford basic necessities (food, fuel) as a result of either direct support with these (e.g. fuel vouchers) or more general help with finances (e.g. debt reduction, general grants, help accessing new benefits, help increasing benefits).

“Without that help (with fuel bills), I don't know where I would be, to be honest.”

(Dundee parent interview 21)

• Being able to afford things for their children, including both essentials and activities to improve their quality of life (particularly for children with additional support needs).

“I was getting the lower rate (of disability benefit) for my son, who has got a lot of issues and when I came in to get help filling out the forms for the reassessment, he actually got the higher rate. So that improved his quality of life.”

(Dundee parent interview 26)

• Reduced stress and anxiety relating to their financial situation. While parents interviewed did not necessarily feel their financial situation was completely settled, there were examples where they felt the financial support they had received through the pathfinder had led to significant impacts on their mental as well as their financial wellbeing.

"It was great because at the time I was struggling a lot, and it took a lot of weight off my shoulders."

(Dundee parent interview 20)

At the same time, qualitative interviews also highlight challenges around the ability of the pathfinder to help some families move towards longer-term financial stability. For example, in relation to support with benefits, clients mentioned being turned down for benefits they had applied for with the pathfinder’s help, and experiencing financial hardship during the ‘five-week wait’ for Universal Credit payments, even though the pathfinder had helped them with the application process. Moreover, while there were examples of families who had accessed fuel grants or other short-term support and felt this had been enough to ‘tide them over’ and enable them to regain control of their finances, others felt that they were likely to need similar support again in future, particularly once winter arrived.

"It helps temporarily...you can always come back next year and they can help you again."

(Dundee parent interview 13)

The two case studies, below, highlight both the potential for the pathfinder approach to help families move to a more manageable financial situation even when they are not in employment, as well as some of the barriers families continue to face, relating to the wider cost of living and benefits system (names and identifiable details have been changed to protect participant anonymity).

Pen portrait 1: Sally

Sally is a lone parent. She has a disability which makes it difficult for her to move around and is a full-time carer, so is currently unable to work. Sally first came to the pathfinder for help with benefits and switching over to Universal Credit. Since then, the key workers also helped her to apply for Adult Disability Payment which she hadn’t known how to apply for before; to reapply for a benefit that was due to be reassessed; and to access vouchers for electricity bills, clothing vouchers for her son and Christmas presents for her son.

Sally felt that this support had helped to change her financial situation “definitely for the better”, especially as the key workers had supported her to re-apply for the benefit that was being reassessed and she was now getting a higher rate than before.

“The extra financial support that they’ve helped us gain has made a massive impact on my life.”

Pen portrait 2: Mary

When a pathfinder key worker knocked on her door, Mary asked for support with switching from legacy benefits to Universal Credit. This was significant for her, since she usually avoided asking for help because of both disabilities which make it difficult for her to leave the house and negative past experiences with other services. Her key worker provided information to help her complete the Universal Credit form and advised her to apply for a supplement during the five-week gap in which she would not get paid. They also helped her to access fuel vouchers and grants for white goods.

This support has helped with what “was quite a scary situation”. However, Mary did not feel financially secure. At the point at which she took part in this evaluation, she didn’t know whether she would be granted the supplement she applied for and there was only so much the pathfinder could do, given the long waiting time for her Universal Credit payments to begin. She reflected on this when asked how her financial situation compared with when she was first in touch with the pathfinder:

“That (my financial situation) actually feels even worse, actually. The financial situation, […] there's no stability there at the moment.”

Impacts: employability

As discussed, the Dundee pathfinder had a strong focus on employment at the outset, and although the pathfinder has evolved to have a more holistic focus, there nonetheless remains strong interest in understanding how far it has been able to move families towards employment.

The pathfinder team described offering a range of support around employment, including: helping clients update or write CVs; helping them identify and apply for suitable jobs; practicing interview skills; and generally building their confidence around work. They also referred some clients on to the wider DCC Employability Service for support where appropriate. This tended to be where they felt clients were closer to employment or could benefit from additional courses or training that could be accessed through ‘mainstream’ employability services.

A relatively small number of clients were recorded as having entered new employment over the first two years of the pathfinder in the monitoring data: 6% (76) of all clients and 9% (23) of families with children in Linlathen and Mid Craigie. This can only be treated as a rough indicator of actual numbers: clients may not always have reported back to the pathfinder or to Employability Services (against whose data the pathfinder employment data was cross-checked) when they started new jobs. However, feedback from the operational team is that where job outcomes are recorded in the spreadsheet, this tends to be for people who had received significant support around employability through the pathfinder. This is supported by the fact that 87% of those recorded as having moved into jobs were identified as lacking previous work experience at their first contact with the pathfinder, indicating that they would likely have needed support to find work.

The pathfinder team and wider stakeholders acknowledged that the number of people supported into employment was considerably lower than the numbers anticipated at the very outset of the pathfinder (though one view was that these had been highly unrealistic). It was also considered lower compared to standard employability programmes. This was felt to reflect the fact that, as discussed, many of the clients with whom the pathfinder has been working with were much further from employment than expected (and further than might be expected across parents engaged with more standard employability support). The high proportion with a ‘no work-related requirements’ benefits condition (meaning they were not required to search for work and might have concerns about losing benefits were they to do so) was also felt to be a factor.

However, the relatively small numbers recorded as moving into a job does not mean that the pathfinder has not made any progress on moving families nearer to employment. Both parents and professionals cited ways in which they felt the pathfinder had improved job prospects, even where this had not yet resulted in parents finding formal paid work. This included:

• Building confidence and positive attitudes towards work: For parents facing significant, long-term barriers to employment, including those with health problems or who had not worked for some time, building up their confidence and encouraging them to shift their mindset to consider employment as a realistic future option could represent an important first step towards employment (as well as impacting on their wider wellbeing). Parents cited the support and encouragement they had received from the key workers, often as much through informal conversation as any formal employability activity, as instrumental in this regard. Even where immediate employment was not seen as feasible due to caring responsibilities or health conditions, participants expressed increased hope that they may be able to work at some point in the future.

“[I’m] more ready to take on a job. Two years ago, there was no chance.”

(Dundee parent interview 19)

• Support to access training, education or volunteering: The pathfinder had strong links to the local college and had helped clients apply to and access courses. Again, the numbers recorded as starting college courses in the monitoring data for the first two years of the pathfinder were fairly low: 31 clients in total, of whom 7 were from Linlathen and Mid Craigie families with children. This may be an underestimate, however, as again the pathfinder may not always know whether clients follow-up on referrals to college.

The pathfinder also supported some clients with less formal training and volunteering opportunities. In 2024, this included developing and testing a ‘return to work’ course with a small group of eight parents who were not working, all but one of whom the pathfinder reported had gone on to further training, volunteering or work. One parent who had participated in this felt attending the course had been a “real achievement” for them, given they suffered from significant anxiety and other health issues. Another had started to volunteer after the course and had since started applying for jobs. Families also shared other experiences of being supported to start training, college courses or volunteering by pathfinder staff, typically saying they had not been considering these as options previously, but suggestions and encouragement from key workers had convinced them to apply.

However, although both professionals and families gave examples where they felt families had made significant progress towards employability, it was also evident that these were sometimes only ‘first steps’ and that many of the parents the pathfinder had supported continued to experience significant barriers to gaining sustainable employment, including those relating to physical and mental health issues, caring responsibilities, low confidence, and skills. Key workers also felt there was a shortage of family-friendly job opportunities locally, which presented another barrier to helping clients into employment. The two ‘pen portraits’ below illustrate in more detail the ways in which the pathfinder has helped parents move towards employment, as well as the considerable barriers some faced.

Pen portrait 3: Laura

When a key worker knocked on her door, Laura had been unemployed for several years. She came to the drop-in and received help with various issues, but initially particularly with addressing her debts. She then moved on to discuss employment. Her pathfinder key worker helped her to write a CV and referred her to training. She was also referred to a charity, who provided her with funding for a course and a support worker. Laura is now working part-time.

Without the door-knocking, Laura doesn’t think she would have engaged with the pathfinder. Laura also values her relationship with her key worker, as she usually doesn’t feel comfortable talking about her problems.

“If [the key worker] didn't help me with debt, I'd have still been struggling... I wouldn't have been able to get back on track.”

Pen portrait 4: Gemma

Gemma was referred to the pathfinder by her social worker, for help with benefits. The first time she visited the drop-in, she felt too anxious to stay long However, a key worker continued to check-in with her by text and phone and they built up a trusting relationship.

Gemma’s key worker helped with various short-term needs, such as benefits, fuel costs, housing. They then supported her to start a training course with another charity.

However, when a family member became unwell, she had to drop out of the course to take care of them. Gemma has also been experiencing ongoing challenges with her own health. While she is not currently able to work, she feels more confident as a result of the help from her key worker and said that she may think about getting a job at some point in the future.

Overall then, while the monitoring data indicates fairly small numbers of families entering employment or formal college courses, the qualitative data highlights the potential for the pathfinder’s place-based key worker approach to help families who are very distant from the labour market along a ‘pre-employability’ pathway towards being able to consider employment as a realistic prospect for the future. However, it also confirms that this may be a long-term goal, that families may experience setbacks along the way, and that estimating a realistic target for employment outcomes, either in terms of numbers or timelines, is very challenging for projects that are seeking to work with those furthest from employment.

Impacts: family wellbeing and capabilities

As discussed at the start of this chapter, the pathfinder has aimed to support families not only around employment and finances, but around their wider health and wellbeing. This is seen as both an end in itself, as part of alleviating the negative consequences of poverty on families, and as a means of helping families to reach a position where they are better able to consider employment, education or training.

Interviews with parents and professionals indicate that the pathfinder has had positive impacts on wider health, wellbeing and confidence through a variety of routes, including:

• Helping them access financial support or goods, including food parcels, fuel support, children’s clothing, and furniture or white goods. Parents spoke about the tangible benefits they felt this financial and practical support had on both their own and their children’s physical and mental health, including improved sleep (where families had been provided with new beds), no longer having to skip meals, and being able to stay warm, which was particularly important to those with health conditions. One parent thought the support she had received with fuel bills and ensuring she was getting all the benefits she was entitled to had probably contributed to her avoiding having to go to hospital.

“That was a huge difference because at the time I was struggling financially, especially with the fuel bills all going up as well. My house is cold, and I've got health issues which means I've got to keep my heating on a lot more. I got cold very quickly. It was really beneficial.”

(Dundee parent interview 25)

Another participant recalled that before she applied for a separate bed for her daughter (who had been sharing a bed with her) “it was getting to the point where [her daughter] was screaming 'cos she was that tired”. Parents also spoke about the impacts on their mental health from being able to afford to meet their families’ needs more easily:

“It changes everything, it really does. You feel more motivated to do things. Whereas before, I couldn't face anything.”

(Dundee parent interview 16)

• Referrals to appropriate support services. In some cases, the key workers also advocated for families to receive the support they needed more quickly, for example, by chasing housing repairs for them. Although it was early days in terms of their attendance at the drop-in when evaluation fieldwork took place, the operational team felt the Health Inequalities nurses were making a difference to the pathfinder’s ability to link clients with health support (a key issue for many clients). However, at the same time, professionals still felt there were barriers in terms of the support available to families with complex and multiple health needs that were not being met either through the pathfinder or other services at the moment. Parents mentioned being able to access health checks without making a GP appointment via nurses at the drop-in as a positive, but also highlighted barriers to accessing wider health support, including difficulties getting appointments, previous bad experiences with health professionals, and anxiety about leaving the house.
• Encouraging and supporting families to engage with community activities, in some cases even accompanying clients to these when they were anxious about attending alone. By linking families with local activities, including those taking place at Brooksbank and organised by the Linlathen Fairness Initiative, the pathfinder had a positive impact on mental wellbeing and social connectedness, particularly for families who had previously been isolated or withdrawn. Examples were highlighted of families who had left their homes rarely if at all prior to being ‘door knocked’ by the pathfinder and were now actively engaged in the wider community. Parents highlighted the positive impact on their wellbeing of not only being able to participate in the community more, but being able to give back to the community by volunteering or donating their own used clothes or toys to Brooksbank, having become aware of these opportunities through the pathfinder.
• Direct support and encouragement from key workers. While key workers referred families on to appropriate support where possible, parents also spoke about the support they felt the key workers themselves had provided as having a very significant impact on their mental health and wellbeing. The fact that key workers had taken the time to listen to them and had offered support and encouragement on an open-ended basis was viewed as central to their improved confidence and wellbeing.

“They have boosted my confidence up, just with chatting … (when I first came in) emotionally, I wouldn’t have talked to anyone, but now I’m like ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’.”

(Dundee parent interview 19)

• Even when parents were not in need of immediate support, they described feeling more at ease knowing where they could go for help if they needed it.

"It's just having that reassurance that someone is there to help because for a long time I had no clue where to go and what to do. [...] Having that on our doorstep is comforting."

(Dundee parent interview 13)

The supportive approach of the pathfinder was contrasted by some parents with what they perceived as the more judgemental response they had received from services previously.

“If they (key workers) weren't here and you asked the Job Centre, I felt like they (Job Centre) didn't listen properly. … A lot of them (at the Job Centre) don't understand.”

(Dundee parent interview 21)

However, while the emotional support provided by key workers was viewed extremely positively, there was also an acknowledgement among both professionals and families that, to an extent, key workers were providing this level of support because of gaps in other services. The team themselves, parents and other professionals recognised that there was a limit to the level of support pathfinder key workers could be expected to provide around mental health in particular:

“[They] can't potentially sort out somebody who is dealing with severe and enduring mental health diagnosis but isn't engaging with their nurse or other services. So, I think they have really struggled with that.”

(Dundee professional interviewee)

Longer-term impacts from the pathfinder on health and wellbeing are difficult to assess. Some families reported experiencing ongoing benefits in terms of their wellbeing even after support had either stopped or reduced. These included perceived improvements in mental health, increased confidence, and a greater sense of emotional stability. However, there was also some uncertainty among those who had struggled with their mental health about how stable this would be in future, and a desire to be able to stay in contact with key workers long term – something we consider in the next section of this chapter.

The case study below again highlights both the impacts of the pathfinder on families’ wider health and wellbeing, and potential tensions around whether the pathfinder is in some cases filling gaps in other services.

Pen portrait 5: Sue

Sue is a single parent living with her children. She has both physical disabilities as well as difficulties with her mental health. After hearing about the pathfinder from a friend, she came in to seek support with paying for fuel bills. Since then, the key workers helped her to access a range of different kinds of support but have particularly helped her with her mental health while she has been on an NHS waiting list for counselling for two years. She felt the support provided had a major impact on her mental and physical wellbeing:

“Two years ago, I was in a bad place. Not leaving the house, not eating. […] Without this place like I said who knows I could have been hospitalised. […] I would say life or death without this place.”

This has mainly been a result of emotional support from key workers, as well as the practical support they’ve linked her up with. The empathy and understanding of the key workers were key factors for her, which contrasted positively with her experience with other professionals she had worked with in the past.

Impacts: empowerment and resilience

Beyond supporting families to meet their immediate needs and address barriers, pathfinder stakeholders hoped that the approach of the pathfinder would lead to families being more willing and able to engage with wider services and, ultimately, empowered to make changes for themselves, reducing their reliance on services. While empowerment is framed as a longer-term aim, the qualitative interviews shed some light on how far the pathfinder is moving families towards greater empowerment and resilience.

First, the potential for the pathfinder approach to develop trusting relationships with families who would not otherwise be willing to seek support was clear from the way families described their relationships with key workers. Engaging with the pathfinder in the first instance was seen as a “big step” for some. There was also some evidence from interviews with parents and professionals that the pathfinder was helping to foster trusting relationships between families and other services. The relationships between the pathfinder team and other services at the drop-in and locally (including the Early Adopter Communities School-aged childcare workers at the local school) were seen as both helping other services identify and engage families who need support, and as giving families confidence to approach these other services for help.

“[The families] they see you all together, so they sort of, I think maybe that trust is built up better.”

(Dundee professional interview)

There were also indications from both professional and parent interviews that some families were gaining skills and confidence to navigate other services for themselves and were becoming more self-sufficient.

“[We] do get them doing things. [Families tell us] ‘Got a letter from this the other week, but guess what? I phoned up and have sorted that. Or, like, ‘by the way, I got my rent sorted out myself’, or ‘I phoned housing back’.”

(Dundee professional interview)

This was backed up by parents who felt they had become more confident at dealing with problems without going back to their key worker, as they would have done previously.

“They've managed to get me a bit more confident with phoning up and asking questions, like with benefits and different things. And before I would just sort of wait and see how it played out. But now [...] I'm more confident and picking up the phone and be like, ‘right, my son's not received his payment. Why has he not received his payment?’ [...] Sometimes I've not had the answer that I've been expecting from them, which [is when I go back to the pathfinder].”

(Dundee parent interview 25)

However, as the quote above illustrates, there were also examples where families felt they either needed or wanted to go back to the pathfinder for further help. This reflected, in part, a lack of confidence in other services, in combination with a preference for returning to the key workers with whom they had built up a trusting relationship, and a preference for face to face support. It was observed that some clients opt to wait to deal with an issue until they can visit the drop-in and receive face-to-face support from the pathfinder, instead of sorting it directly with the other services, even where they are aware of how to do this. There were also families who reported that they still did not know where else they could access support without the pathfinder. While the operational team described trying to educate clients on where and how to access support for themselves, they felt there were some clients that would continue to need a more intensive level of support over the long-term, given the extent and nature of the issues they faced.

Wider professional stakeholders raised related concerns around whether clients might become too dependent on the pathfinder, as well as uncertainty about what long-term empowerment for families with multiple complex needs might look like, noting wider, structural barriers to being able to resolve issues without support.

“A lot of the issues [facing families] are health related. A lot of the issues are, frustration with, sort of, council services, and not really even being able to access those services. So, it's hard really to say what that empowerment would really look like [for these families].”

(Dundee professional interview)

This potential tension, between building trusting, supportive, open-ended relationships on the one hand, and empowering families to resolve challenges for themselves in a system that remains complex to navigate on the other, was reflected in recurrent questions raised by professional stakeholders about the ‘exit strategy’ for the pathfinder in Linlathen and Mid Craigie. Concern was expressed about how families would fare if the level of support provided to them via the drop-in or the key workers was reduced. While some families indicated that they were now happier to access support directly, others assumed they would continue to access any help they needed in future via the drop-in, and for some there was an expectation that the pathfinder key workers would continue to be available for as long as they felt they needed support.

“Definitely the connection is there for the girls, they’re not going to give up on me until I get to where I want to be, which could take another couple of years I know that, easily. So hopefully I can come back in two years and tell you that I have a job.”

(Dundee parent interview 21)

At the time of writing, plans for longer-term support in Linlathen and Mid Craigie were still being finalised. These findings highlight the need for place-based key worker interventions to consider carefully the balance between cultivating trusting relationships and recognising that at some point clients who have received more intensive support may need to navigate services more independently and/or be supported by someone else.

Impacts for different types of families

Dundee parents interviewed for this evaluation included lone parents, parents with large families, parents of disabled children and who themselves had disabilities or long-term conditions, and parents with English as a second language. The number of parents interviewed limits the scope for identifying differences between different groups. However, there was some evidence that those with more complex health issues themselves (including mental health issues) had perhaps received more support, including ongoing emotional support, from the key workers, and that even with this support, they were more likely to feel they still faced significant barriers to moving into employment.

Overview of barriers and facilitators to positive impacts for families

Perceived barriers to the pathfinder making a positive difference to families, identified by professional stakeholders, included:

• Structural barriers, including wider benefit levels and rules (including those relating to people on Universal Credit no work-related requirements), and the local job market
• Capacity of wider services to provide the support some clients need to address barriers to employment/other outcomes, particularly (but not only) support with mental and physical health
• Capacity of the pathfinder team, in particular whether the level of demand from both people without children and people from outside the target area had diluted the amount of support the team had been able to provide the ‘core’ target group.
• Barriers relating to the specific needs of the target group of families in Linlathen and Mid Craigie, with the high level of physical and mental health problems seen as limiting the scope for the pathfinder to support some families into sustainable employment in the short- to medium-term in particular
• Data sharing between services, an issue that is discussed in more detail in chapter 5, but which was felt to duplicate effort and therefore reduce the resource available for supporting families.

In addition to factors already identified as facilitating families’ engagement with the pathfinder, factors felt to support impact included:

• The multi-agency background of the key worker team, which was felt to enable knowledge sharing and easy ‘cross-referrals’ within the team where specialist knowledge was needed.
• Cross-working between the pathfinder and other services (such as the Early Adopter Communities school-aged childcare team and Linlathen Fairness Initiative) to jointly support and identify opportunities for families.

Conclusions and learning

A summary of evidence relating to family impacts, and wider learning and reflections is set out below.

The pathfinder has engaged 1,277 people over two years, including 266 Linlathen and Mid Craigie clients with a dependent child. Qualitative data suggests the effectiveness of:

• targeted outreach in engaging families who would not normally engage with support
• the role and skills of the key workers in building trusting relationships with families.

The qualitative evidence from parents on their experiences of the support was overwhelmingly positive and supports the scope for this approach to help families address their immediate needs and, for those who are able, to take positive steps towards employability and/or a more financially and emotionally stable situation. The non-judgemental, trusting relationships that families formed with key workers were critical to these impacts.

Around 1 in 10 parents were recorded as having moved into employment, although this is based on self-reporting. Although these numbers are fairly small, there is also qualitative evidence that the pathfinder has helped other parents gain confidence and feel that employment is a realistic future prospect for them.

The pathfinder has helped just over half of the families access ‘non-benefit’ financial assistance. Almost half were referred to support or advice relating to benefits or finance but the quantitative data on impacts on benefit income was felt to be unreliable. There was also a belief that the target group for the pathfinder might have been quite ‘benefit maximised’ already.

Qualitative interviews with parents and professionals provide evidence that the pathfinder approach can help people move towards a more sustainable financial and emotional situation. Findings also highlight, however, the significant ongoing barriers some families face to moving out of poverty on a sustainable basis, including structural barriers, complex health barriers, and the capacity of wider services to respond to these.

The findings also raise questions around how to strike the right balance between an approach based on forging strong, trusting relationships with particular professionals, and avoiding long-term ‘dependency’ on those key workers.

Wider learning and reflections: Impacts for families

• A key challenge for the Dundee pathfinder has been the balance between achieving specific ‘hard’ outcomes (e.g. employment entry) and the wider, holistic focus that might be needed for families with multiple barriers to sustainable employment. This is likely to be a challenge for many projects working with families in poverty, particularly those that take a person-centred approach, where outcomes are determined by client need. It raises questions about not only what is offered and how, but how success should be measured and over what time period. The Dundee pathfinder illustrates how challenging these questions are to reach a consensus on. It highlights the need for clear agreement between stakeholders on aims and expected outcomes and any changes to these, and for robust discussion of the implications.
• Quantifying the full range of impacts for families in the Dundee pathfinder has been challenging. Moreover, qualitative interviews indicate that, for some families, impacts may only be realised in the long-term and hence not measurable over the time period of the evaluation (or even the intervention itself). Thus realising and measuring long-term impacts for families will necessitate commitment of monitoring and evaluation resources over an extended period. In considering timelines for outcomes, new areas should reflect on the implications of this for monitoring and evaluation requirements.
• Qualitative interviews clearly highlight key features of the Dundee pathfinder that were felt by families and professionals to have maximised its ability to engage and help families facing multiple barriers, and which other projects should consider including. These included: focusing at the start on building consistent and trusting relationships; the importance of outreach; choosing the right venue; tailoring the offer to the needs of families; the value of offering face-to-face assistance; and the quality of the key workers and the empathetic, holistic support they were able to offer.
• Finally, the research also highlights wider structural barriers to achieving impact in the Dundee pathfinder, including some (such as benefit rules and data sharing) which may require national level input to resolve. Challenges around resolving these issues are discussed in more detail in chapter five.