Right Help, Right Time
The aim of early help is to help as soon as a need arises or a problem is identified by providing support as early as possible to prevent things getting worse. This can be at any point in your child’s life, from conception, through early childhood and into adolescence. It can help prevent further problems arising by working with you to build the strength and resilience within your family and enable you and your family to find solutions in the future.
Early Help may be provided by one agency or a group of agencies who will work together with you and your family to help resolve any difficulties you are facing.
You will always be given a copy of your early help assessment. If you move into a new area you can, if you want, share the assessment with any new professional that becomes involved with you and your family.
How can I get Early Help for me and my family?
You can request Early Help directly, or ask someone that is already helping you to request help by phoning or going into a Family Hub, or completing the online Early Help request form.
Within 2 weeks a practitioner will contact you to arrange an initial meeting with you and your family.
What is the Early Help Assessment?
The Early Help Assessment is a way of working with you to identify what the needs are and how you and your family can be best supported.
Agencies will talk to each other and work together with you and help to co-ordinate the support that has been identified by the assessment, which will lead to a family Early Help Plan.
What is the assessment about?
When we carry out the assessment with you, we will ask you some questions and talk to you and your family. We will talk about what is working well in your family, what you and other people are worried about and what may need to happen next.
What happens next?
Based on what you tell us we will find the best people to support and help you. We will arrange to get together with you and these people to talk about what to do next. This will be at a time and place to suit you.
Someone will be chosen as your main worker (we call this a “lead practitioner”) and they will help coordinate the assessment and the plan.
With your agreement, the different agencies involved will talk to each other. This will mean that you won’t have to keep telling people the same things over and over again and you will be kept fully involved by one main person.
We hope that you will find this approach helpful
The Early Help assessment will:
- Help you and your family get the right support sooner
- Work together with you and agencies that can help.
How will my information be shared?
You will be asked for your agreement for Early Help services to support you and your family.
Coventry City Council complies with the Data Protection Act and the GDPR and is registered with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) as a Data Controller.
We use your personal information so that we can provide advice and guidance, assessments, services, support and safeguarding for children and their families as well as to provide the help that you require as early as possible. We process personal data because it is necessary to comply with our legal obligations and perform our public duty.
The Children's Services privacy notice explains how personal information is going to be used, what for, who it will be shared with and why.