Early Help is taking action to support a child or their family as soon as the problem emerges.

Help can 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.

It also applies to all children and young people, with any form of need.

Early Help requires that agencies should work together as soon as a problem emerges or a need is identified to ensure the child gets the right response, and the right services, from the right people at the right time.

The aim is to meet the need early and avoid a problem escalating or the need increasing.

Early Help is provided to prevent or reduce the need for specialist interventions unless they are absolutely the correct response to meet the need and resolve the problem. it can provide in the most complex of circumstances as well as the simplest.

It allows support teams to respond promptly if a child is at immediate risk of harm (or has other significant or complex needs) as much as it means responding to a need which only requires advice or guidance. 

The Early Help Handbook - aims to explain how early help works in Birmingham. It is a guide for any practitioner working with children, young people and families across every sector, including, health, voluntary community, education (from early years to post 16), SEND, social care and youth justice. The handbook is organised into a series of questions and answers, with links that signpost the reader to further information throughout. To access the handbook click here.

Children's Advice and Support Service (CASS), - offering earlier partnership support, improving Early Help advice and access to MASH. For more information click here.

Signs of Safety and Wellbeing Practice Framework, - a strengths based methodology to help professionals work with families to look at what is working well for a family, what they are worried about and what needs to happen to improve the situation.  For more information click here.

Early Help Assessment and Our Family Plan, - using the Signs of Safety and Wellbeing framework.  nencompass.