Early Help

At Kingsway Park High School, our Early Help Lead is Sharon Pearson. Spearson@kingswaypark.org

Early Help support for families

Early Help is about helping children, young people and families deal with any issues as early as possible. It is available to families with a young person up to the age of 19, or up to the age of 25 if they have got special educational needs or disabilities.

How can I get Early Help support?

The best way to get Early Help support is to talk to a professional who knows you already and undergo an assessment. This could be your young person’s doctor, teacher, support worker, school nurse, health visitor or early intervention and prevention worker.

They will be able to talk to you about what additional help you may need and how to access it.

What is an Early Help assessment?

The Early Help assessment is a way of working with children and young people. It involves listening to you and your young person to find out your young person’s needs, and what is working well in their life. An action plan, agreed with you and your young person, is also put in place to make sure your young person gets the right sort of help. The Early Help assessment is voluntary – you and your young person can choose to be involved. The Early Help assessment will help your young person receive the right support at an early stage before their needs increase which can be much more difficult to help you with.

What can I get help with?

Your family can get help with a variety of issues you may need support for, including:

• Advice about your young person’s mental health or development.
• Mental health support.
• Advice about healthy relationships.
• Help with money and buying food.
• Support for children with disabilities or behavioural issues.
• Bereavement.
• Anything else that makes you worried about your young person.

What is Early Help support?

Early Help support is extra help we offer to children, young people and their families when they need it. This can prevent small problems from becoming big problems. It can lead to a quick solution or help to identify extra support if needed.

Every family is unique, and everyone can go through problems that are difficult to deal with. Sometimes families need a bit of extra support. For example, you might be worried about your young person's behaviour or development, or you might be experiencing some changes or difficulties that you can’t manage by yourself.

Everyone struggles at times; it is ok to ask for help. We’re here for you and would like to support you with any issues as early as possible.

Who provides the help?

Early Help support can be provided by our Early Help Lead, Sharon Pearson, the Local Authorities Early Help team, a charity or a health provider. Key workers such as teachers can agree with you an action plan to make sure you get the right support.

Where more than one organisation is involved in supporting your family, we will work together to create a single support plan which coordinates all our actions and activities.

With agreement, a professional will ask you and your young person some questions to find out what help and support they may need. This information is recorded on a simple form. You and your young person will agree what is put on the form, and you will be given a copy of it.

Other young people may feel able to discuss their situation on their own with the worker. A young person’s wish to keep information confidential from parents may be respected by the worker, where this is in the young person’s best interests and welfare.

Confidentiality

As a rule, the information which you and your young person provide will only be shared with your family’s consent. However, there may be certain times when the people working with you need to share information.

For example:

• When they need to find out urgently if a child is at risk of harm.
• To help a child who is at risk of harm.
• When an adult is at risk of harm.
• To help prevent or detect a serious crime.