New help for troubled families around the area

The Think Family Expansion aims to assist parents and their children where young people have been involved in crime, and families in anti-social behaviour.

It could also apply to households affected by truancy or exclusion from school and those not in work.

Other criteria are children under-five, living in the neighbourhoods of Bersted, Pevensey and Orchard and families with adults with problems such as substance abuse.

Up to 275 families around the Arun district will be included in the three-year programme. It will be run by Arun District Council.

Council leader Gillian Brown said: “The object of this is to help families break that circle of dependency and be able to cope on their own.”

The programme will see caseworkers co-ordinate existing services for the families and ensure access to specialist services to get children to attend school, cut offending and adults back to work. The scheme sits between the anti-social behaviour and family intervention programmes.