Ambitious Goals

One of Waltham Forest's core ambitions is to drive economic growth, by supporting local businesses, developing our town centres and infrastructure and, critically, building new homes. To ensure sustainable regeneration this will require investment in our people too, so that everyone in Waltham Forest is able to take advantage of this growth and enjoy a good quality life. 

By 2020, the Council aims to make Waltham Forest the Community Capital of London: working alongside families and the community, and supporting people to find their own solutions to the challenges they are facing and making the most of everything the borough has to offer.  

We want all families in Waltham Forest to be:

• Safe - Being safe is a fundamental right for all people. We want everyone in our communities to be safe from harm be that: abuse, neglect, exploitation, crime, violence, substance misuse or extremism. 
• Well - We want all everyone in the borough to be mentally, emotionally and physically healthy, live in decent homes and enjoy a positive and fulfilling experience of life in Waltham Forest
• Resilient - We want everyone to have the skills, knowledge and capacity to cope with, manage and reduce problems that may arise in their lives using the resources in their communities and social networks 
• Independent - We want our residents to realise their own ambitions without needing to rely on council services or needing interventions of professionals and going further, to give something back to those who may be more vulnerable.

Key principles of Think Family 2020:

• clear offer - everyone understands their entitlements and responcibilities
• integrated, joined up, whole family approach - drawing on family strengths and supporting family members to help each other
• all interventions focused on developing skills, capacity and relationships
• a systematic, proactive identification of need
• services informed by evidence
• system-wide approach - working with partners for new and better ways of doing things together
• focused on main goal of strengthen individuals, families and communities and thereby improving outcomes in order for savings to be made in the future. 

Think Family means using the power of all the Local Authorities combined resources within the Families and Homes Directorate:

• children's services
• adults' social care
• public health
• housing services
• housing solutions and our housing strategy and delivery programmes

We will do this by understanding and embracing our role as strategic commissioners as well as providers - the commissioning intentions across five key domains of public service delivery to families in Waltham Forest are outlined in the Think Family 2020 report.

Waltham Forest Think Family 2020 has enlisted the help of the Dartington Social Research Unit  to be our research partner, to provide support and steer through the planning and delivery stages.