Agenda item

The Cabinet Member for Education provided a brief introduction to the early help report. The Director of Education and Early Help then explained that due to the broad range of the continuum of early help services in the County, a joint report had been produced involving colleagues in Worcestershire Children First and the County Council (both Communities and Public Health). Full details of each service area were included in the report.

The Director advised that the report set out the significant progress being made on developing the provision and collaboration of early help services across Worcestershire. The importance of the ‘working together’ guidance was critical for promoting the welfare of children.  Partners working closely together for instance through the use of family hubs ensured that access to help and support was readily available at the earliest opportunity.

Details were provided on the recently established WCF Early Help Family Support service which was located within Children’s social care and which provided family support workers to families where there was level 2 or level 3 need.

The Panel was also informed of the evolving role of Here2Help which now offered advice and support on a range of services. Plans to ensure that the children’s centres buildings continued to be used for the wider early help, early education and care and family hub offer were also highlighted.

The Panel was provided with a copy of an Early Help booklet which had recently been launched and was available on the website and in print for partners to distribute.

Members asked a range of questions, which were responded to as follows:

·         A Member commented that the recent Ofsted letter was very encouraging but queried the reference to ‘most’ children rather than every child being reached by the service. The Assistant Director, Family Front Door and Partnerships explained that they were continually addressing the potential barriers for people to access support, to improve accessibility, for instance, through the use of language. There was a multi-agency approach in place to ensure that help and support was provided, and all parties were encouraging families to come forward to seek support at an early stage.

·         In response to a question about the lack of access to early help facilities in rural areas, particularly South Worcestershire, the Director commented that it was an ongoing challenge to ensure that residents in rural areas had access to the early help offer. Rural schools were used as a key place for information to be available and/or disseminated. She highlighted that the vast majority of the children’s centres continued to have a role in early childhood, so these were another source of information, particularly for younger children’s needs and also that the family hubs were being more connected.

·         The role of Here2Help in relation to the current financial struggle of families was raised. The Assistant Director for Communities advised that additional resources had been made available to support free school meals in the holidays. There had also been grants available through the Act on Energy Fund, but this had now come to an end. The Assistant Director explained that there was now a focus on working together with the voluntary sector to promote sources of help. A Community Directory was being launched the following week, which contained information on the whole of the voluntary sector in the County, and what it could offer. In response to a follow up question, the Assistant Director explained that this directory was an interactive portal, which residents would be able to access themselves. There would be some additional telephone support in the short term, but this would be time limited.

·         The Director advised that the percentage of schools referred to in paragraph 42 by the word ‘most’ was over 80%. She commented that they continued to work with schools to promote the importance of the early help offer and that through monitoring this situation, they could identify that there were still about 16 state funded schools without an early help offer showing on their website.

·         The Director referred to a video that had been produced by Cookley Sebright primary school setting out how their early help offer had been developed. It was agreed to circulate the video to the Panel for their information.