The Power of Relationships: Danielle and Sharon’s Story of Change

“We’ve been on a long journey really— even before the promise,” says Danielle. “We’d already begun to recognise what the promise then voiced,” Sharon agrees. “We’d already begun to think that we needed to invest our services, money and resources earlier, in more preventative provision for families.”

In September 2022, after testing the idea on a smaller scale, the South Lanarkshire social work team launched family support hubs in four localities. The goal was to make holistic, whole-family support more accessible to families at times of need rather than crisis, focusing on early action as a way to reduce the requirement for child protection and looked-after procedures.

As a partnership between health, education, social work and the third sector, the new approach shifted resources towards prevention and early intervention. Across the four hub sites, social workers, family support, group workers, peer workers, Children First staff and therapists would offer families a broad roster of services, with the aim of minimising crisis points, reducing inequalities, and improving child development, family functioning and wellbeing.

A meaningful change which would shift core services

Danielle Sarr oversees the local hubs, based in Hamilton, East Kilbride, Lanark and Cambuslang. Sharon Grant is service manager and strategic lead.

“Danielle was leading a ‘test of change’ around earlier help and a centralised model of support that was more community based,” says Sharon. “So, the Promise came at the perfect time in terms of that strategy, thinking, culture and drive, I suppose. It was a national-level initiative that allowed South Lanarkshire to look at scaling up an earlier-help model in the community.”

This would be a meaningful change, they both say, shifting core services, and committing real investment into the four community sites.

“For it to be a sustainable change, we couldn’t rely wholly on Government funding,” says Sharon. We reconfigured our whole family support offer, pulling from provision that already existed, bringing it together and then delivering it differently across South Lanarkshire. We took a big leap really. But the expectation that across Scotland we had to deliver on the promise, and the feedback from the consultation, confirmed we needed to invest earlier. So, it gave us the permission. And the buy in.”

“The community wants this, and they’re reaching out before crisis point”

“Another, more recent endorsement for the changes we’ve made has been a significant uptake in families reaching out to us directly,” says Danielle. “Last year, families referred children just as often as our education colleagues, and that didn’t happen before. When referrals come from education, health or police, a problem has already been noticed. So, because families are picking up the phone now, we’re confident when we tell leaders that the community wants this, and they’re reaching out before crisis point.”

This success has largely come as a result of positive word of mouth, they say. Funding from places like the Corra Foundation has also allowed the service to take on peer support workers— individuals with lived experience who can help parents access the hubs, which is a great way to break down any stigma.

Still, reorganising the service has come with its challenges, Sharon admits. “In a crisis-driven provision, authorities can’t just disinvest to reinvest. We have vulnerable families who need the support that’s already there. You can’t just whip away provision. It had to be business as usual in those cases.”

“Definitely, a big challenge was making the new fit with the already-existing,” says Danielle. “A change this big will always impact other areas of our work, so we need to make sure we’re not causing any negative consequences elsewhere. We need good relationships, open communication, and to make sure we’re hearing about the longer journeys for families.”

“Rapid growth has been a challenge too,” she says. “We’ve been keen to grow, but it’s possible to become a victim of your own success if you’re not careful. You have to grow in a way that’s manageable.”

“There’s job satisfaction in knowing you’re more likely to be able to affect change”

One of her biggest learnings, Danielle believes, is the power of relationships.

“Families know the faces of staff at our hubs. That means it’s easier for staff members to go in and deescalate situations if that’s necessary, whereas a new face might not be able to do that, and might even make things worse.”

“We’ve staffed the hubs in such a way that any family in South Lanarkshire can get good relational, trauma-informed response, without having to navigate a complicated system. It’s still tough social work, with complex family needs. But there’s job satisfaction in knowing you’re more likely to be able to affect change. Our staff talk about feeling they have the permission to work with people in a trauma-informed, person-centred way, rather than following procedures and processes that can lose families. These are very experienced professionals, and they say this is the way they want to work with people.”

”Radical change is hard— but you can see when it’s worth it”

“The family support hubs are totally aligned to the delivery of our whole-family wellbeing strategy,” says Sharon. “And, having taken on that shared priority of delivering holistic family support, the children’s services partners across South Lanarkshire have played a big part in the success of the model.”

“The response from both families and staff definitely shows the change has been worth it. We have such an engaged, motivated workforce – partly because of the care opinions from families, which can be so detailed. Families spend so much time writing feedback. We also see the impact in quantitative data. All of this lets us know we’re doing something impactful.”

“We get good qualitative and quantitative data, now,” says Danielle. “What’s the point if we’re not reducing an escalation of risk and concern? We can evidence a reduction in referrals to our statutory teams, a reduction in child protection investigations for pre-birth families, and can show that 80 per cent of the families that go to group work say they have an improved knowledge of their child’s needs. Radical change is hard. But you can see when it’s worth it.”

2025: The halfway point for the promise

Find out about what's been happening to keep the promise over the last five years.