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Local offer Tools for Schools

What is Tools for Schools? How can the Inclusion Framework and OAIP support my setting?

Find out more on our info page
  1. Home
  2. Team around the school or education setting
  3. Services supporting schools and settings
  4. Early Help

Early Help

The sooner a family receives the right support, the sooner they are able to improve their situation and prevent the need for prolonged support. 

Support starts with universal services, such as the school, the health service and the police. Families needing additional support will receive the next level.

A ‘whole family’ approach ensures that children’s needs and welfare are being met and maintained as well as those of the family. This is done by working with the family, local communities and others already supporting them. 

Early help also includes parents-to-be and very young children where:

  • their needs are not being met by routine or ‘universal’ services
  • they do not meet thresholds for statutory interventions.

There are four elements to early help:

  1. The Integrated Front Door (IFD, formerly MASH) aims to provide a single and consistent point of access to advice, guidance and decision-making about the right level of help needed to keep each child safe or achieve change.
  2. Early Help Hubs that ensure families passed on by the IFD are joined to the right kind of support quickly through a co-ordinated response with partners.
  3. A partnership of specialist keyworkers for families with multiple or complex needs who require coordinated multi-agency support. This aims to prevent the need for statutory social care intervention.
  4. Strong local partnerships to support families in their communities and make sure they have the capacity to deliver an early help response. 

For further information on Early Help see the WSCC website.