Family Friends provides support to families in central west London who are facing economic hardship, isolation and have complex needs.
We aim to improve the quality of life of disadvantaged families by helping them find their strengths in order to make positive changes in their lives. Our services aim to:
- strengthen the family unit through building confidence in parenting and parent/child relationships
- promote emotional and physical health in families
- improve the home environment
- improve access to health and community services
- reduce isolation
- build aspirations and plan for economic improvements
Measuring the difference we make
We carefully monitor our impact. With the help of Charities Evaluation Services, the Befriending and Mentoring Foundation and PQASSO (all now part of NCVO), we have established target outcomes for our services and thorough, carefully followed procedures for establishing how supported families do relative to these targets.
Prior to the programme beginning, parents can ask for support around confidence in parenting, how you feel, the home, physical health, personal development, local resources, family and friend relationships, their child’s health, how their child feels and parent and child time together. The children we mentor can request support around school, family and friends, being healthy, the home, how they feel and the local area. Our child mentoring programme addresses the outcome criteria relating to Every Child Matters.
Assessments of how our families are doing are made at regular intervals thoughout the programme and at the end. Our research tells us that at final assessment over 95% of families report improvements as a result of using our services, with 100% rating the service ‘Good’ to ‘Great’.
