What is Early Help?

Early help for families

Find out about the support available for you and your family and how to get the help you need.

What is Early Help for Families?

Often when one person in a family has a problem, it can affect other people in the family. Early Help brings together professionals who will work with the whole family to try to make things improve for everyone. Early Help could include support with parenting, employment, anti-social behaviour and emotional well-being.

What will happen if I want Early Help Support?

Step one – getting help

Someone your family is already in contact with, such as a teacher or health visitor, might suggest that you would benefit from Early Help. You could also speak to a professional currently working with your family to find out more.

Step two – talking with you

If you decide to take up Early Help, the worker will talk with you – and more importantly listen to you – to find out about any difficulties that you and your family are having. They will also want to know about what is going well for your family and any strengths that you have that can be built upon. The worker will ask about the extra support that you think you might need and advise you on what is available. This is called an Early Help Assessment.

Step three – meeting

You will be invited to a meeting with the different people who could help your family. This could include workers from schools, health visiting, services working with young people and a wide range of other services. This is called a Team Around the Family (TAF) meeting. At the TAF meeting everyone will support you to decide on your goals and actions and what support is available for you to achieve them. A plan will be agreed saying who is going to do what and when. Everyone will decide on a Lead Professional. This person will be your main contact who will keep you informed, listen to your views and support you during the whole process.

Step four – review

This is where everyone will come back together and see how well the plan is working and if anything needs to change. At this stage everyone might decide that things have improved enough for Early Help to stop. Alternatively, if there are still things that your family needs support with, Early Help will continue and a further review date will be set.

What are the Benefits of the Team Around the Family?

Families often report that they have to speak to lots of professionals and repeat the same information about their situation over and over again, or that it seems as if all of the professionals involved don’t speak to each other. Because you will have a team of professionals working with your family, they can share information with your permission to ensure that you receive the most appropriate help to meet your needs

How can you find out more?

How can you find out more? Talk to a professional who is in contact with you or your family. This could be at your child’s school, a health visitor or any kind of worker that you are in contact with. For more information about Early Help, visit www.familyspacecroydon.co.uk or email: Earlyhelp@croydon.gov.uk