What is Early Help and why it is important to children and families?
Early help, also known as early intervention, is the support given to a child, young person, and their family when a problem first emerges. Help may be required at any stage in a child’s life, from pre-birth to adulthood and applies to any problem or need that the family cannot deal with or meet on their own.
Early help is not a service provided by one agency but is an approach that services adopt with many stakeholders working together to produce an early help offer. The Early Help Offer (system) is the network of services, processes and interactions that aim to help children, young people, and families at the earliest opportunity.
Providing early help is more effective in promoting the welfare of children than reacting later and can also prevent further problems arising in the child, young person, and family’s life. The help should be needs-led with support and empowerment from universal and targeted services. These are designed to prevent and reduce problems from escalating whilst also helping children, young people and families move from statutory services to universal support.
Early help identifies those families that may need support and signposting to help, at any stage in a child’s life when these needs cannot be met from within the family network, universal and community services alone. An enhanced single agency approach should always be considered, but at times a collaborative multi-agency approach across agencies and partners will be required to prevent escalation and provide families the help that they need. Early help support should enable families to build on their strengths, promote resilience to sustain positive changes and enable them to find their own solutions in the future. Understanding a family’s own support networks of family and friends who can help and build a family’s resilience will enable sustainable positive outcomes.
