Early Help for Families
What is Early Help?
We understand that many children and families experience difficult times which can make a happy, successful school and home life a struggle. Sometimes, you or your children may need extra support and there is nothing to be ashamed of in asking for help.
We are here to listen and offer support. We work in a non-judgmental way and know that families come in all shapes and sizes! Here are just some examples of the things we can help with:
- Supporting parents and carers to ‘get involved’ with school life
- Support with food bank vouchers / The Bread and Butter Thing https://www.breadandbutterthing.org/members
- Coordinating appointments and referrals for children's additional needs
- Mental or physical health issues
- Housing and money worries
- Family relationship problems
- Bereavement and loss
- New starts and settling in
- Training, education and employment
- Parenting skills
Early Help helps you to recognise what is going well for you and your family, where you may benefit from extra help, and who is the best person to work with you and your family to make this happen. Early Help is a voluntary process and does not involve statutory agencies such as Social Care.
For more information about Warrington's Early Help offer please visit: https://www.warrington.gov.uk/early-help
Early Help Assessment
An Early Help assessment starts with a conversation. You can have an informal chat with a member of the Stay Safe Team in school or a local authority worker about what’s going well and what’s not going well for you and your family, and they will let you know what sort of help is available.
It may be decided that an Early Help Assessment (EHA) is the right way forwards for your family. We use it to help you see what is working well and identify the areas that you or a member of your family may need a bit of extra support.
It‘s your choice to take part in the assessment and you can choose who else should be involved. A good assessment is done with you, not to you.
Every person and family are different, but an Early Help Assessment (EHA) will:
- Help you see what’s going well and not so well for your family.
- Help you and others to see what support you might need.
- Create a picture of your family’s circumstances, which can be shared with your permission, so you don’t have to repeat yourself to different workers.
- Help you to be part of a team of people working together on the same plan to get things going well again.
What happens after the Early Help Assessment?
With your permission, people from different organisations working with your family will share information and work together to help support you and your children. This could be school, Health Visitors, mentors, Family Support Workers, Children's Centre Workers etc. This may then be followed by a Team Around the Family (TAF) meeting.
The family and any professionals involved will come together to make a support plan. This is reviewed at regular intervals to ensure that progress is being made for your family and that the right support is in place.
The lead professional that supports you and your family will arrange the review meetings and be someone you can speak to at any point about any concerns or issues you and your family are experiencing. The lead professional will typically be a Family Support Worker, a Children's Centre Worker or if school are the lead, Mrs Leatherbarrow or Mrs Wilson.
Early Help Links for Parents / Carers
Legal Advice / Guidance
- The Citizens Advice Bureau https://www.warrington-advice.co.uk/warringtoncab
Housing
- Housing Plus https://www.homeless.org.uk/homeless-england/service/warrington-borough-council-housing-plus
- Torus Housing https://my.torus.co.uk/
- Warrington Housing Association https://www.wha.org.uk/
Groceries
- Warrington Foodbank https://warrington.foodbank.org.uk/get-help/how-to-get-help/
- The Bread and Butter Thing https://www.breadandbutterthing.org/members