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Early Help

Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023:

Early Help as support for children of all ages that improves a family’s resilience and outcomes or reduces the chance of a problem getting worse

Early Help is a collaborative approach where we recognise families do best when they are supported by those who already know them and can assess and provide early intervention at the earliest stage

Early Help is not a service, but a way of thinking. Early Help is available to every child and family, and refers to all support available to children, young people and families. It covers a broad range of interventions and can either be single agency or multi- agency. The Early Help offer includes work of all agencies including police, health agencies, education setting, community and voluntary sector.

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Early Help is important because early identification and response to need means that children can support children and families to develop the skills they need to live happy, health and successful lives. It can help to improve the quality of children's lives and improve relationships within networks. In addition, it's vital in preventing families reaching crisis point where they require formal or statutory interventions.

Providing the right support at the earliest opportunity is enough to help families get back on their feed and thrive. Every professional working with or engaging with children and families, regardless of organisation has a responsibility to deliver Early Help and support families to access the right services at the earliest opportunity.

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Our shared priorities and ambition includes, ensuring:

  • that children and their families receive the right help at the earliest opportunity by the right person
  • we build on a robust, graduated response to children and families within the City of York by all agencies recognising their role
  • we capture and understand the voice of the child and family including their lived experience to inform planning
  • we support practitioners in delivering Early Help within each agency
  • we use plain language in a format which is understandable to all those who access it

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Best start in life

Families have increased knowledge of the services in their area. Increase in partner led Early Help Assessments, which are robust and effective.

Happy and Healthy

Improvement in general health and wellbeing for children. Improvement in school readiness and attendance. Families receiving right help at earlies opportunity. Families supported by those who already know them and can provide early intervention at the earliest opportunity.

Stay Safe

Increase in families making progress against the goals in their Early Help. Family networks are seen and included within planning and support.

Ready for the future

Positive feedback from families. Collaborative approach in delivering Early Help. Strength in relationships between Early Help partners. Communication if effective, offering challenge where appropriate and celebrating successes. Shared language: not using jargon and acronyms. Confident workforce who feel able and supported to deliver Early Help.

Continuum of Need

City of York have developed a Continuum of Need with some features we might see in families across the continuum.

Level One: Universal needs

All children, young people and families access a range of universal services, including maternity and health visiting services in early years, education, leisure facilities, GPs and services provided by voluntary organisations.

Level Two: Emerging Needs

Some families have needs which will require additional support to enable them to reach their full potential. These needs may change throughout a child’s life, needs which might require limited support or intensive support depending on their circumstances.

Level Three: Family Help – Increased Vulnerabilities and Additional Need

Describes a service provided to children and families who are identified by practitioners as having increased vulnerabilities and additional needs.

Level Four: Specialist Need

Children and young people whose needs are increasingly complex and require specialist support through Section 17, Section 47 child protection and children in our care interventions.

The Continuum of need is a guide and a starting point to assist practitioners to come to a common understanding. It allows practitioners to identify levels of need and risk using indicators related to outcomes. It also supports practitioners in determining how their service can best support and work alongside children.

Professionals should use the guide within the Threshold Document alongside professional knowledge and understanding, taking a holistic view of the child or young person, their lived experience, and the safety and protective factors around them.

Collaboration

Early Help is a collaboration and not the sole responsibility of one service.

Early Help is a collaborative approach where we recognise families do best when they are supported by those who already know them and can assess and provide early intervention at the earliest stage. All children deserve the best possible start in life - right help at the right time.

An effective Early Help model is one of collaboration and brings together families, communities, professionals, and systems to work together in a joined up co-ordinated approach, to develop a shared understanding and prevent further problems arising in the future.

The Early Help Steering Group was formed in June 2023, bringing together key partners to find solutions to areas that need further development in York. Group membership includes individuals from Police, Tees Esk and Wear Valleys (TEWV), Primary Care, Healthy Child Service, Education, Targeted Intervention, Local Authority and Youth Justice Service to name a few.

Collaboratively we have created and driven an Early Help Action plan, raise awareness of Early Help, develop common language and principals, all captured within the revised Early Help Strategy.

Strong professional partnerships and a joint ownership of the delivery of Early Help across City of York.

Families have interactions with numerous people and services and success lies with being supported by trusted professionals already involved with the family.

Being able to work in partnership with children and families and bring in other agencies in a whole family approach.

We will look to achieve this through our mission statement: "Every conversation starts with the child".

Through Signs of Safety we work collectively and collaboratively across all of our organisations and systems to ensure that we work with families as a whole rather than individuals.

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A new webpage has been produced which contains all resources to help professionals when working with a family. Read more about support for partners in delivering Early Help for families.

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The following resources are available on the Early Help Support page.

A PowerPoint presentation you can share with colleagues is available on the CYSCP e-learning portal.

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Partner Agencies have worked together to develop a multi-agency overarching City of York and North Yorkshire Multi-agency Information Sharing Protocol to create a positive culture of sharing information and facilitate more effective Data Sharing practices between Partner Agencies, with the aim of improving service delivery.

You can see further information regarding this on the about the CYSCP page.

The following documentation is also to be used when working with a family:

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If you have a concern that a child is vulnerable or at risk of significant harm please contact the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) in York.

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