Early Help is our new approach to ensure children, young people and their families receive the right support at the right time to stop problems escalating.
In North Yorkshire, we believe Early Help is a collaborative approach, not a provision. All children and young people will receive universal services; however some children and young people because of their needs or circumstances will require extra support to achieve their potential.
Therefore the purpose of Early Help is, to work together to resolve problems before they become overwhelming, long term and costly to the child, young person, family and the wider community.
Early Help enables children, young people and their families that have become overwhelmed by difficulties to make better choices, learn new skills and have aspirations to turn their lives around.
Who should offer Early Help?
As a basic principle, the first person to offer support to a child or young person and their family should be the professional identifying the issue; Early Help Champion.
In North Yorkshire, every professional working with or engaging with children and families, regardless of organisation, status or position has a responsibility to deliver Early Help and support the family to access appropriate services to enable positive parenting.
Early Help can be provided by a range of staff in different organisations, such as health services, schools, early year’s providers and a range of voluntary, community and faith sector services. Early Help is the term used by all agencies to describe North Yorkshire’s approach to providing early support to families so that children, young people and their families are safe, happy and ready for school, work and life’s challenges.
Early Help is the right help, at the right time, in the right place.
What does the Children and Families Early Help Team do?
The Early Help Champion will talk to professionals, parents, carers and young people to find out what their concerns are and help them to find the right solution as quickly as possible, they may be supported by the Early Help Consultants to look at what support is available.
Sometimes issues can be addressed by talking to someone who is already familiar with the family – such as a Midwife, 0-19 Healthy Child Practitioner, Teacher, and Early Years Practitioner.
However, some issues need more targeted support from someone who has experience of dealing with similar situations and could require more intensive support, this is where the Early Help: Children and Families Workers support the children and families using a number of evidence based strategies.
How does it work?
After completing an Early Help assessment with the families the Early Help Champion will identify what the difficulties are and work with children, young people and their families to put together a package of support to ensure the right support is offered at the right time.
It might be that one professional or service can help or that the family need a range of different professionals at different times. This is known as Team around the Family (TAF).
Contact us
For more information on Early Help contact your local team.
If you have safeguarding concerns about a child, you can contact the Multi Agency Screening Team Duty Team.