Early Help Strategy 2023-2025

Coventry’s Vision for Children, Young People and their Families

Child Friendly Cov: Coventry is a child and young person friendly city - a place where children and young people feel valued, supported and enjoy themselves.

The aspiration of Coventry to be the best place in the UK for children and young people to live and grow up is a holistic view across the partnership. To achieve this we must reach children, young people and families when their needs first emerge and intervene when services have the most impact.

Early Help services can make a real difference to a child's life from providing opportunities to give every child the best start in life, and enabling all children, young people, and parents to maximise their capabilities and have control over their lives. Early Help services must work collaboratively to ensure that every child, young person and family have relevant support and interventions delivered at the right time, in the right place, by the most appropriate professional and service. Children and young people need to enjoy their childhood and adolescent years, to grow up to be responsible citizens, contributing to the city, and develop independent skills which allows them to be fulfilled and resilient adults. Children and young people are important to the city now and in the future.

Embedding Coventry Family Valued Approach in Practice

Coventry Family Valued is our way of working with children and families. Empowering families to find their own solutions and make changes in their lives

At the heart of Coventry Family Values is how we work with families through relationship-based practice, doing with, not to. There is a desire to empower and enable families to find solutions, to build their own networks and for families to make changes, build resilience and most of all to remain together. In Coventry we believe that families are the experts into their own lives, and we want to embrace this and create change; by supporting families to take the lead in their plans, in their support package and in decision making. We want to build relationships with families and partners whilst using approaches in practice that are respectful, non-discriminatory, unbiased and non-judgmental. We can use Family Group conferencing and family network meetings as part of the Early offer.

The Voice of Children and Families

It is important that the planning, delivery, and evaluation of the early help offer are co-designed by children, young people and their families. Being included in these processes helps to ensure that services understand and support the needs of local communities and adapt responsively to emerging themes.

Child Friendly Cov

Child Friendly Cov is a campaign to make Coventry a child and young person friendly city, ensuring that Coventry is a place where children and young people are valued, supported, and enjoy themselves.

Together, with children and young people, the following themes have been identified as priorities for how to make Coventry a child friendly city

Children and young people in Coventry should always:

Be and feel valued

• Children and young people have opportunities to share their views, feel like their voices are heard, and participate in decisions that impact them.
• Children and young people have all basic rights met to prevent poverty, discrimination, and injustice.
• When decisions are made which impact children and young people, organisations will ensure that these decisions are clearly explained and made accessible to read/watch.

Have opportunities

• Children and young people are aware of and have access to training, employment and apprenticeships
• Children and young people and their families are aware of the activities happening
• Children and young people have access to spaces and resources to enable them to learn, have fun and be inspired

Be and feel safe

• Children and young people feel safe when walking and travelling around the city
• Children and young people and aware of the potential dangers when using the internet and know how,when and where to report these issues
• Children and young people have access to and can enjoy child friendly spaces within the city

Be and feel healthy

• Children and young people know how to access mental health and well-being support and services.
• People in Coventry have the means and the knowledge to take care of their physical health.
• Everyone contributes towards making Coventry a more environmentally friendly city and reducing the impact of climate change.

Children and young people who have received services have said they want:

• Practitioners that are trauma informed and understand our story.
• Practitioners to take time to get to know us and what we like and what we are good at.
• Practitioners that are relatable.
• Practitioners and resources that are accessible and that connect us back with our community.
• Don’t label us as bad.
• Don’t diagnose us as mad.

How will the Voices of Children and Families continue to influence the design and delivery of services?

As part of the One Coventry Plan, a series of engagement activities with children and young people and their families will take place.

A range of methods will be used to collect feedback from children, young people and their families, including the youth inspector programme.

Parent Carer Panels

As part of the national expectations within the Family Hub and Start for Life programme, Coventry will establish a city-wide Parent and carer panel which will drive the work of co-design of integrated services.

The parent/ carer panels will provide opportunities to gather the views and perspectives of local families and to harness the assets, skills and experiences of parents, carers and other residents in the co-design and co-delivery of early help offer.

Family Feedback, including that of young people, is collected from every family that is supported through an early help assessment and an early help plan. Users of the Family Hub are also surveyed annually regarding satisfaction of the service they received and how this can be improved.

Embedding a shared language across the Partnership

It is essential that communication between partners is transparent and clear. This includes having a shared vocabulary so that every member of the partnership understands what the other is saying and what they are referring to. Having a shared language allows teams and agencies to understand and agree common goals, objectives, and expectations. It is then possible to create trusting relationships and understanding by embedding language that’s unified, consistent, clear, and supportive and avoids assumptions or misinterpretations.

Within early help there are many terms and phrases used to describe practice, processes, and systems. These terms will be used

consistently in this Strategy and within the partnership when describing the following:

• Early Help: is taking action to support a child, young person or their family early in the life of a problem, as soon as it emerges. It can be required at any stage in a child’s life from pre-birth to adulthood, and it applies to any problem or need that the family cannot deal with or meet on their own. This will include those who have experienced trauma and adversity or be from a single or cumulative event/s.
• Early Help Offer (System is a network of services, processes and interactions that aim to empower and assist children, young people and families at the earliest opportunity.
• Early Help Module (EHM) is a recording system available to the Early Help Partnership to record the Early Help practice undertaken with children, young people and their families in Coventry. The system is hosted by Coventry City Council but can be used by any agency that works directly with children, young people and families. Having a shared system is recognised as being the most effective way to share information securely and avoid agencies working in isolation.
• Universal, Targeted, Specialist are services that are available to families that have different levels of needs. Families may need to access one, two or all three types of services at any one time.

Universal services are those available and accessed by all families, targeted services are developed and aimed at children, young people and families with specific needs, and specialist services are those delivered by practitioners with specialist knowledge and expertise which only some families may need, or at specific times

Importance of Partnership working

Working Together to Safeguard Children (2022) statutory guidance emphasises the crucial role of effective early help. This has a focus on the collective responsibility of all agencies to identify, assess and provide effective early help services. The early help offer is not a single service, it is a network of services, processes and interactions that aim to help children, young people and families at the earliest opportunity.

Partnership working is at the heart of Coventry’s Early Help Offer. By ensuring an effective partnership approach, leaders and practitioners will work together to focus on improving outcomes for children and families. The early help offer available to children and their families is made up of different types of services that collaborate to form the local early help offer which includes universal services, community support and targeted and specialist services.

When partners work together to deliver an early help offer:

• Families receive the right help at the right time.
• Families tell their story once.
• Individual family members needs are not seen in isolation (whole family approach).
• Resources are maximised and shared.
• Families receive support without delay.
• Duplication is reduced and needs are met.
• Data and insights are shared.
• Partners learn from one another and help one another.
• Families’ needs are met and the need for statutory services is reduced.

How the Early Help Partnership will work together

Learning how partners can work together is integral to achieving the best possible outcome for the child, young people and their families.

Early help is recognised as being important across a range of multiagency strategies and plans. Opportunities for partnership working will be maximised and enhanced through a variety of strategic and operational means including the Early Help Strategic Partnership (Subgroup of the CSCP), the multiagency “Doing it Together” Early Help Outcomes Groups, the Team Around the Family Approach, Family Hubs and the Parenting and Relationships Strategy.

Early Help Strategic Partnership (Subgroup of the Coventry Safeguarding Children Partnership (CSCP)

The Early Help Strategic Partnership (EHSP) has the accountability for the whole family system approach of the early help offer, working across all agencies that support children, young people and their families in Coventry. It will have a strategic oversight of the delivery of the Family Hub & Start for Life programme and the Supporting Families programme in Coventry. By operating as the effective data governance board, it will provide accountability for the use of data and ensure progress is made regarding the integrated data transformation required within the early help offer. The EHSP is responsible for the monitoring and evaluation of the impact of this strategy and will ensure that the strategic and operational priorities are shared, understood and implemented. It will provide a governance and leadership forum in which agencies encourage and challenge each other to deliver positive outcomes for the children, young people and families in Coventry.

“Doing it Together” Early Help Outcome Groups

There are 10 Doing it Together Outcome Groups; one for each of the Early Help Outcomes. These groups will provide opportunities for integrated strategic and operational discussion. These are focused on early help outcomes delivered through a shared action plan, measuring progress and impact using a set of key performance indicators. This approach will ensure that local services are joined- up, flexible, responsive to new challenges and sustainable for the long term; allowing them to work together to understand local trends, predict emerging need in their local area, and identify and respond to those needing extra help.

Team Around the Family approach

Teams around families (TAFs) are groups of practitioners, volunteers, community members and family and friends who work alongside the family to improve outcomes as part of an Early Help plan. They are led by a Lead Practitioner; all members are active participants and their contribution is equally valued. The team will demonstrate good communication and co-ordination based on the family’s plan and this should be reflected in the family’s feedback on the support provided. This approach may also be supported using the Family Group conferencing approach or convening family network meetings.

Improved Family Relationships

There is a wide and varied parenting offer delivered across the partnership, delivering a Parenting Strategy and overseen by the Parenting Strategic Group. The Local Authority provides evidenced based formal structured parenting programs in addition to a universal online resource offer that is accessible to all parents who require support, advice and guidance.

Coventry continues to further embed the Reducing Parental Conflict Programme at both a strategic and operational practice level.

We continue to build on the practice of working in a whole family approach, particularly focusing on the engagement of fathers and male carers, as we have identified that they have been under-represented in assessments, plans and interventions

Aligning the workforce development and practice strands of the RPC program enables the provision of the right help and support to families who face multiple and complex needs and may require support to develop positive and supportive relationships within the family, to provide strategies to deal with conflict in a healthy way and build family resilience. Changes are sustained and as a result do not escalate to meet a domestic abuse threshold. Families should be able to access this help and support from a range of partners they meet.

Family Hubs and Start for Life Programme

Coventry opened 8 Family Hubs in 2018, and since that time the Family Hubs have been supporting children, young people and families. The space and buildings remain at the heart of the Coventry Early Help offer with further aspiration and opportunities to enhance and expand the Family Hub offer.

The maturity of the Family Hub offer in Coventry is fundamental in delivering the improvements and the change needed to deliver the Early Help Strategy. Coventry has pioneered the Family Hub approach and will now align the offer to the National Family Hub and Start for Life Programme 2022-2025 as well as acting as a trailblazer for other Local Authorities. There will be an associated Early Help Partnership Family Hub Offer delivery plan which will ensure the continued implementation of this programme.

A Family Hub is a system-wide model of providing high-quality, joined- up, whole-family support services. Family Hubs deliver these services to families from conception, through a child’s early years until they reach the age of 19 (or 25 for young people with special educational needs and disabilities). The Coventry Family Hub model provides a universal ‘front door’ to families, offering a ‘one-stop shop’ of family support services across their social care, education, mental health and physical health needs, with a comprehensive Start for Life offer for parents and babies at its core. This is the universal offer for all families in the first 1001 days which brings together critical services for every new family:

• Midwifery.
• Health visiting.
• Perinatal mental health support.
• Infant feeding advice with specialist breastfeeding support.
• Services related to special educational needs and disabilities
• Safeguarding.

The Family Hub offer includes services delivered from a building, support delivered in communities, and virtual and digital help and resources.

Three key delivery principles underpin the Family Hub offer:

1. Access: there is a clear and simple way for families with children of all ages to access help and support through a Family Hub building and a Family Hub approach.
2. Connections: Services work together for families, with a universal ‘front door’, shared outcomes and effective governance.
   • Professionals work together through co-location, data-sharing and a common approach to their work. Families should only have to tell their story once, the services are more efficient, and families receive more effective support.
   • Statutory services and voluntary and community sector (VCS) partners work together to get families the help they need.
3. Relationships
   • The Family Hub prioritises strengthening relationships and builds on family strengths.
   • Relationships are at the heart of everything that is delivered in Family Hubs.

Each Family Hub provides a core offer to all children, young people and their families as well as bespoke tailored services to the local community it served, based on robust data and insights.

Our Family Hubs aim to provide family support services early, when families need them and enable access to universal and targeted services, (Right Help Right Time level 1 & 2) and enable access to the intensive support of the Supporting Families team (Right Help Right Time level 3) when required.

Supporting Families Programme

The new Supporting Families Programme was launched in March 2021 and builds on the previous Troubled Families programme.

As set out in ‘Supporting Families 2021 to 2022 and beyond’, it is a nationally funded government programme which requires Coventry to co-ordinate early help support and track the impact with families with multiple identified needs. Early help should be delivered through a ‘whole family approach’ with a range of partners working together with the family to prevent needs escalating, helping to bring about sustainable changes and reduce the demand of services.

The approach must include an assessment of need which considers all family members, followed by a coordinated family plan, led by an identified lead practitioner from one of the members of the team around the family. Families who have at least three identified needs within the 10 Family Outcomes Framework (see figure A) should receive intensive and individualised multiagency early help.

Each year Central Government provides Coventry with a target on the number of families they should offer support to. By achieving sustainable outcomes with the family a payment by Results Claim can be made. This is reinvested into the early help offer and secures ongoing national investment to provide intensive family support and increase the maturity of the early help offer. There will be an associated with the Early Help Partnership Supporting Families delivery plan which will ensure the continued implementation of this programme.

Shared Early Help principles

The following principles will guide the way in which the Early Help Strategic Partnership endeavours to work together:

• We will capture the experience, wellbeing and voice of children, young people and their families to ensure that children and families are at the heart of everything we do.
• When supporting families, we will take a whole family approach that recognises the uniqueness and diversity of each family.
• We will work with families to support positive involvement that includes extended family and community networks.
• We will work with families to identify needs at the earliest opportunity to ensure a plan of support is established that meets the individual need of a child and their family.
• We will apply the Right Help Right Time guidance to ensure the best possible outcomes for children, young people and their families.
• We will regularly review the difference we are making to the lived experiences of children, young people and their families.
• We will involve children, young people and their families in shaping, designing and delivering support and services and will ensure that feedback to families is provided as part of the “you said, we listened” approach.
• We will work together as a partnership to ensure that children and families in Coventry receive the best possible support and intervention that builds a team around a family that supports manageable long-term change and enables families to thrive.

Membership of Coventry’s Early Help Partnership

The Early Help Partnership brings together a range of organisations to work alongside one another to support children and families across the city.

Any organisation, service or team which is committed to supporting children, young people and their families can be included in the partnership. The partnership is underpinned by its shared vision and its collective aspirations to improve outcomes for children and families. The graphic below depicts the breadth of services that make up an effective Early Help Partnership, across statutory and commissioned services and voluntary, community and faith-based organizations.

Opportunities for partners to work in collaboration to deliver the Early Help Strategy is through connecting with the 10 “Doing it Together” Early Help Outcome Groups.

There are also several partners and collaborators such as Public Health and Advice Services who act as strategic systems support and/ or connectors, who may not work in a frontline capacity but play a critical role in making the Early Help system work.

Early Help system of support

Early Help Multi-Agency Workforce

A strong Early Help System is made up of many different types of practitioners and services who operate together to provide a coherent and coordinated offer.

This table defines the likely role of different types of practitioners in the Early Help System when contributing to that early help offer. As part of the implementation of the Strategy and the early help system guide, a Workforce Development plan will be created to support practitioners in the necessary skills and knowledge to deliver the aspects of the workforce table below

Our Strategic Priorities

Early Help services will collaborate to deliver on the Supporting Families Outcomes and the Family Hub and the Start for Life Programme, and through partnership working together we will:

• Identify earlier children, young people, and their families that require intensive help and support.
• Increase the number of families who receive whole family support leading to better outcomes for children, and evidenced by successful Supporting Families claims.
• Identify the most appropriate service for a family, to be the Lead Practitioner for families in undertaking Early Help assessments and plans that meets the needs of individual families.
• Develop a shared outcomes framework to evidence the difference made for children and families.
• Support children and families to have their say and learn from what they are telling us about how services can be improved.
• Establish and progress actions linked to the 10 “Doing it together” outcomes groups.
• Build on multi-agency partnerships and work together with Family Hubs and other community venues to extend the offer of support to families at a local level.
• Develop a comprehensive virtual offer where families can access advice, support, information and help digitally.
• Meet the expectations of the National Family Hub and Start for Life and Supporting Families Programmes.
• Further embed a trauma informed approach to practice across the whole Early Help system.
• Adopt “Child Friendly Cov” principles across all services who support children and young people.
• Reduce health inequalities for children and young people in Coventry.

Early Help Outcomes

The collective endeavours of services working together in the Early Help Partnership, including the Family Hubs, will deliver against the following shared Early Help outcomes.

1. Getting a good education - I have access to a good education.
2. Good Early Years development - I have good early years development and the best start in life.
3. Improved mental and physical health - My family are healthy and emotionally well.
4. Promoting recovery and reducing harm from substance misuse - I am safe from the impact of substance misuse.
5. Improved family relationships - My family are thriving, and our relationships are positive.
6. Children safe from abuse and exploitation - I am safe and protected from abuse and exploitation.
7. Crime prevention and tackling crime - I am safe and protected from the impact of crime.
8. Safe from domestic abuse - My family are safe from the impact of domestic abuse.
9. Secure housing - I live in secure and suitable housing.
10. Financial stability - My family are financially resilient.

The delivery and progress of these outcomes will be mobilized through the ten ‘Doing it Together Early Help Outcome Groups’. Each group will be made up of several organisations that will work together to deliver on a shared action plan, which will be underpinned by a set of key performance indicators that are reported quarterly to the Early Help Strategic Partnership. The responsibility of monitoring these groups will be with the Early Help Strategic Partnership who will report to the Coventry Safeguarding Children Partnership and will help to resolve any issues that affect their progress.

Governance structure

Who we want to help the most – the priority groups

Coventry’s Early Help Strategy aims to improve outcomes for all children, young people and their families by ensuring they receive the help they need at the earliest opportunity.

In addition, certain groups of children and young people have been identified as especially vulnerable, including those that have complex and multiple needs as identified by the Supporting Families Programme, and should receive focused support from the Early Help offer.

Through the ‘Doing it together outcomes groups’, the partnership will focus on the needs of children and families associated to each of the 10 Early Help Outcomes. The ‘Doing it together outcome groups will also determine the cohorts of children and young people with unmet needs to target intervention, including:

• Children who are not in education and those at risk of exclusion.
• Children who are not accessing their early years entitlement and may not achieve a good level of development by the end of the Early Year Foundation Stage.
• Children who require intervention to support their physical and emotional health and wellbeing.
• Children who have been impacted by substance or alcohol misuse.
• Children who have been impacted by negative family relationships.
• Children who have experienced abuse and exploitation including sexual abuse.
• Children who are impacted by crime and antisocial behaviour, particularly black and mixed heritage young men who are over-represented in the criminal justice system.
• Children who have experienced and been impacted by domestic abuse.
• Children who are not living in secure housing or temporary accommodation.
• Children who live in poverty.

How will we know when we have achieved the desired aspirations?

The overall aim is to develop a cohesive early help offer embedded within a whole family approach that builds protective factors and family resilience, enabling and empowering families to help themselves, and one another.

The Early Help Partnership will also undertake an annual self- evaluation using the Early Help System Guide. This Early Help Systems Guide includes five work strands which enable the progress from a “Developing” to a “Maturing” and finally a “Mature” partnership. An annual self-evaluation of the Early Help System is completed against the following and this is submitted to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and reviewed across government departments as an indicator of our collective progress to transform and mature the Early Help offer. The following statements describe what this will look like when this has been achieved:

Family voice and experience

1. There are well-established mechanisms to gather and act on feedback from families and engage people with lived experience in service design, governance and quality assurance.
2. Families say they know how to navigate local services and how to get help.
3. Families who have several needs, say they know who their Lead Practitioner is, that all their needs were considered individually, and as a whole, they only needed to tell their story once. They also say all the professionals work together to one plan in a team around the family
4. Families say that those that helped them listened carefully, cared about them and told them about their strengths.
5. Families say that the help they have received addressed all their problems and they are better connected to their own support network and local community.

Workforce

1. There is a professional family support service. Whole family working is the norm for all people-facing public services through a shared practice framework, where early help is seen as everyone’s responsibility.
2. Public services work together in place-based or hub-based environment, where partners are integrated virtually or physically.
3. We invest in our workforce with a workforce development plan. This is to embed the shared practice framework and there is direct support for professionals to improve their practice through a quality assurance framework.
4. The response to different presenting needs is aligned or integrated to ensure there is always a whole family response.

Communities

1. We are improving the connectivity between voluntary and community sector activity, family networks and formal early help activity.
2. Our relationship with community groups and voluntary organisations embodies a culture of valuing the contribution of all.
3. We are building capacity in communities and harnessing the talent of parents, carers and young people with lived experience to help one another.
4. We are shifting decision making about local services and facilities towards families and communities.

Leaders

1. There is a senior strategic group accountable for the Early Help System and the partnership infrastructure evidences a focus on early help, the whole family and whole system working.
2. Our system is balanced, so that more appropriate support is provided for children and families earlier to avoid unnecessary or costly statutory intervention in the children’s social care system.
3. Partners have agreed a shared set of measures at family, cohort, demand and population level, including quality of practice and family voice, which collectively represent the effectiveness of the Early Help System.
4. There is a culture of using evaluation and evidence to inform development of the Early Help System.

Data

1. There is a senior strategic group with representation across the partnership, which is accountable for developing and driving the use of data for the whole Early Help System.
2. All data feeds are shared safely and robustly across the partnership, brought into one place and used to identify family needs.
3. Case management systems are accessible to all partners working with families, allow us to quantify all issues affecting the family and report on all issues and outcomes in a quantifiable way.
4. Working with our strategic partnership group we are developing innovative approaches to the use of data. We are using technological solutions to match data, present information to family workers and strategic boards and analyse these data to prevent the escalation of needs.