Early help assessment

The Early Help Service covers three areas; Early Years, Early Help and Targeted Intervention.

This is to allow for greater focus on services in each area, for example the 2, 3 and 4 year old offer (Early Years), the Early Help offer and the creation of an Intensive Targeted approach, working jointly with our colleagues in Children Young Peoples Service.

The three service areas within Early Help are broken down as follows.

Early Years

Early Years is a Universal Service for families of Havering where the focus is around school readiness and light touch parenting interventions with families.

There are six Children Centres across the borough from which a range of services are delivered, such as; midwifery, sexual health, child health clinics,  parenting programmes as well as a variety of  child / parent groups such as Stay and Play and Music and Movement to assist with child development.

Early Help

Early Help is aimed at early intervention in order to prevent escalation of need, designed to empower families to be independent of services.

The Early Help Service is now using Outcomes Star which has replaced the previous Early Help Assessment.

The Outcomes Star both measures and supports progress for service users towards self-reliance.

The Stars are designed to be completed collaboratively with the family to ensure that the families themselves identify areas where change is needed to best support the family as whole.

Work will continue to be undertaken with the family in order to track the changes made.

Family Practitioners within Early Help will be the lead professional on all Early Help interventions.

Families Together

The Families Together is a team devised to provide intensive support to children and Families where family breakdown may occur and result in the child becoming Looked After.

This will also include those children who are likely to be remanded to Local Authority Care or custody and prevent escalation in circumstances.

The team will also work with those children whose plan is to return home after a period of S20 care to facilitate rehabilitation.

Make a referral

Please use our online portal to make a referral or use the contact details on our report a concern with a child page.