Britain’s Broken Families

David Cameron has promised to turn around the lives of 120,000 troubled families by 2015. By the looks of this bleakly fascinating film, his best chance might be the Labour-devised Family Intervention Project (FIP). This scheme gives each FIP worker four families each, which allows a high level of engagement – and believe us, it’s necessary.

Where do you begin with parents who think it’s okay not to clean up cat piss despite the presence of two small children? Or a mother who won’t insist on her 14-year-old daughter practising safe sex in spite of her already having had one miscarriage? As always, education is the key. Claire and Vicki, the two FIP key workers we meet, are patient, firm and compassionate by turns as they try and challenge behaviour patterns that have often been generations in the making. However sobering aspects of this film are, we’re lucky to have such dedicated and able public servants.