Family Matters Evaluation- An integrated family support & school-aged childcare evaluation at Indigo 2022/2023

We believe that all families deserve to be able to access the right kind of support, at the right time, in the right way. Family life is a blessing in so many ways, however we all hit in a bump in the road from time to time and shouldn't be afraid to ask for some help. That's why Indigo believes that family support should be a universal offer that all families know about and can access in order to be able to give their children the best possible start in life. Our Family Matter's Model has been running for almost two years now and we wanted to be able to review it and share the thinking around it, in order to help make family support more accessible, in more communities.

Jayne Swanson Consulting has carried out an evaluation to help share the learning from our work in Family Matters,a universal family support model, to date. The Family Matters service provides a holistic, asset based family support service as part of our existing school aged childcare and early years offers and whilst it provides a range of support services for families, an integral element includes access to subsided/free school-age childcare places as part of a pilot to support Scottish Government's development of a new framework for a statutory offer of school aged childcare.It is currently funded by The Access to Childcare Fund (ACF) provided by The Scottish Government who also funded this evaluation.

This document describes Family Matters, it's functions, what has been achieved and what has been difficult. It also includes information on things to consider to expand the model or deliver it in other communities.We would like to thank Jayne Swanson Consulting for conducting this evaluation, the Scottish Government for funding the work and our parents/carers, team and young people for their contributions to the report.

Jacqueline Lamb,CEO of Indigo Childcare Group,noted:

We hope that publishing this evaluation will help parents see that Family Support is for everyone, that family life isn’t always easy and it’s ok to ask for help. Importantly though, we have shared information on our model of family support specifically to help funders, policymakers and providers see how important it is and what is needed to offer a quality, universal family support system in their communities. We are happy to support those exploring it, our families need and deserve it.