Early Help
Everyone at St Benedict's Catholic Primary School will endeavour to support you to the best of our ability so that things do not escalate to statutory services and your child’s education is not affected. An early help assessment is important around early help, but school can offer a variety of additional support and signposting for our pupils and their families so please do not be afraid to ask us for help.
What is Early Help?
Every family has its ups and downs. Being a parent is hard work and there are no instructions. Sometimes, you or your children may need extra support. This may be before your children are born, when they are very young, or throughout their school years. There is nothing to be ashamed of in asking for help. 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. This may be through an Early Help Assessment (EHA).
Early Help Assessment
This starts with an Early Help conversation. You can have an informal chat with an Early Help Lead in school or 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. This conversation might lead to an Early Help Assessment (EHA). This is how we get a full picture about the whole 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 an EHA?
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’ meeting.
Why do I need to give my permission (also known as consent)?
Your personal information belongs to you. Agencies can’t share your information unless you agree, because your information is protected by law under the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).
What is a ‘Team around the family’ 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 a member of the school's team.
Do you want to talk to someone?
You can talk to anyone on the school's team in confidence. This could be your child's class teacher, a teaching assistant, the deputy headteacher or headteacher. We are all here to help. Please call school on 01925 234 699 and we will be able to put you in touch with the right people.
Further information can also be found on the My Life Warrington website.
