Supporting Families to Stay Together: An Evaluation of the Step Up Step Down Programme in Wales
Children’s social care in Wales faces a ‘crisis in care’ characterised by rising numbers of children entering care, pressures on care provision, a shortage of suitable placements, difficulties recruiting and retaining foster carers, and increasing demands on the social care workforce. These challenges highlight the need for preventative and edge-of-care approaches, such as Step Up Step Down, that support children to remain safely within their families wherever possible.
The Step Up Step Down programme supports families on the edge of care, with the aim being to reduce the number of children coming into care and to support the bonds and capacities of families. Families are matched with a Family Support Foster Carer who provides mentoring and practical support to parents, as well as short breaks for children and young people. Wider support is provided over a 12–15-month period, which includes parent training programmes, children’s groups and family activities in the community. Following the success of Step Up Step Down in Northern Ireland the programme has been piloted in Pembrokeshire and Powys.
The first stage of the evaluation focussed on the implementation of the Step Up Step Down pilot in Pembrokeshire (Mannay et al 2026). In the evaluation period, 12 families (23 children) successfully stepped down from the service, with an average involvement of 14 months, supporting children aged between five months and 11 years. Among families who engaged with the programme in Pembrokeshire, the service achieved a 95% success rate, with 22 of the 23 children supported maintaining care arrangements at home. At the end of the evaluation period, the service was supporting 11 families (26 children), with an additional five families awaiting allocation.
The evaluation involved children, parents, and Family Support Foster Carers, as well as staff working directly for The Fostering Network in Wales, social workers and Local Authority Senior Leads who were involved in the commissioning, organisation and delivery of Step Up Step Down. Data was generated through creative methods, interviews, observations and the analysis of secondary data.
Children and young people described Step Up Step Down with phrases such as ‘loved’, ‘happy’ and ‘fun’ when discussing activities, relationships, friendships. They also noted how the programme assisted them with emotional regulation and relational skills, so that they could gain an understanding how feelings work and learn to identify their own feelings. Parents also reported the benefits of learning opportunities.
I’ve seen major improvements with the way I parent… One thing that I’ve really taken onboard from the PACE group is repair…. It was just very difficult. But going to the parent groups, I’ve learnt how to be a better parent… parenting is hard anyway, but when you’re parenting with mental health and neurodivergence, it’s a whole new ballgame… One of the things we took home a couple of weeks ago was an emotional wheel… And when… [my daughter] just suddenly starts screaming and crying over something, I’m able to actually look at this wheel and break that emotion down to get to her core emotion. And it’s not just a random outburst…she’s actually feeling this. So, it’s helped me [be] more empathetic towards my children, and understanding with regards to their emotions and their behaviour. And I think that has helped me be a better mum (Parent)
The evidence generated in this evaluation suggests that the combination of all elements of the Step Up Step Down pilot worked effectively to support families who gained capacity, skills and knowledge, and built supportive networks, which contributed to stable family relationships. For example, those facilitating the programme noted how it had kept families together.
Were the children we got involved with prevented from coming into care? Certainly, some of them, yes. So, we kept the numbers lower than they otherwise would have been as a result of this project (Local Authority Senior Lead)
These are my three original families since I started… all my families are still together. So… it’s working (Family Support Foster Carers)
Importantly, parents also shared their perspectives on the value of Step Up Step Down and how it had brought positive changes.
Without Step Up Step Down, I don’t think I would have coped with [child]… I hope it continues for families who need it… I think it’s been a fantastic support for myself. I can’t praise it enough… they’ve helped me and my mental health… I was really down, I didn’t know which way to turn… And now, I don’t look back, I keep looking forward. I had no-one to turn to, but Step Up Step Down got me through it, and they’re still there (Parent)
It saved me… and it saved the children as well… It would have been very difficult. They’ve saved our lives. No doubt about it… Blackest of black that you can imagine, Step Up Step Down were that light… We are advocates for Step Up Step Down… they have supported us through an absolute journey of hell… And our children, and it has been the most difficult journey that we’ve ever been on, but we have made it… We’ve come out the other side… And you know, I can’t thank the service enough for what they’ve done for me and my children (Parent)
Honestly, I was thinking about it earlier, if there was no such thing as Step Up Step Down, it might have been a 50-50 chance of me making it. If I only had me and social services without the middle person to help… I don’t know what they want from me, and my anxiety level is up here, and I’m very angry with them, and I don’t want to appease them in any way outside of, “You give me my [child] back” … so I honestly… it could have been a coin toss of whether it would work for me or not if I didn’t have Step Up Step Down, and so not only has it made it work, but it’s made it work a lot better (Parent)
Given the current ‘crisis in care’ it is important to invest in programmes that have clearly demonstrated that they can support families experiencing difficulties and prevent children entering the care system. The evidence generated in this evaluation positions Step Up Step Down as a valuable programme that can meet these aims and make a crucial contribution to reducing entry to care and supporting families to flourish.
To find out more about the project please visit – https://cascadewales.org/research/step-up-step-down/
You can access the Executive Summary of the full evaluation report here
Reference – Mannay, D., Roberts, L., Stevenson, S. and Baker, E. 2026. An Evaluation of the Step Up Step Down Pilot Programme in Pembrokeshire: Cardiff: Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre – CASCADE. Available at – https://cascadewales.org/research/step-up-step-down/
