Early Help

What is early help?

Early help means providing support to our children and families as soon as a problem emerges, at any point in a child’s life.

At St. Augustine's, we work to provide Early Help to those children and families in the school community with emerging needs, which may not be appropriate for Social Services intervention, but require some support. Early Help means providing support to our children and families as soon as a problem emerges, at any point in a child’s life.

The “levels of need” model is used to assess at which level the help should be provided.

Early Help is the vision of all partner organisations working with children and families, to improve children’s lives by working in partnership to raise aspirations, build achievement and protect the most vulnerable.

There is clear evidence that early help results in better outcomes for children.

A key objective of Early help is to provide information, advice and access to services at the right time to meet a family's needs and to support them in resolving concerns as soon as they emerge.

Support can be delivered from a wide range of services depending on what is needed; people already working with your family might offer additional help or support so that you can access more specialist or targeted services.

Support for families may include: 

·         Advice and support to promote good attendance

·         Liaising with external services e.g. Housing and Children Social Care.

·         Support during appointments and in meetings.

·         Help to complete paperwork and forms e.g. court appearances, housing, school letters, grant applications and benefits.

·         Referrals to outside agencies e.g. Continence service, Paediatric Learning Disability Team and Speech and Language Therapists.

·         Emotional support for parents

·         Information on local specialist training events linked to additional needs through the termly SEND newsletter

·         SEND parent drop ins with Headteacher/SENDCo

·         School nurse support

·         Early Help Assessment which may involve support from external agencies

·         Children and Family Wellbeing pastoral visits 

·         Providing information and signposting to other services in your local area. 

If you would like to request early help support or would like more information, please contact Mrs. N. Pound on 01282 426938.