Our early help teams work with families to provide support to children, young people and families as soon as difficulties start to emerge.
Early Help could also include support with: parenting, employment, housing issues, financial difficulties, substance misuse, domestic abuse, school attendance and mental health.
Early help support for professionals information:
Early help support for professionals | warrington.gov.uk
Early Help is everyone’s business
Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023 is statutory guidance we use to make sure we work together to provide effective early help services.
Early Help can:
Prevention can do more to reduce abuse and neglect.
Any professional working with your family, such as
can offer early help services as soon as they can see that advice, support and/or intervention may be needed.
How to make a request for Early Help support
If more support is needed for a young person or family, they can submit a Multi-Agency Request for Support (MARS) referral. Consent is required from the family to submit this form.
Multi-agency request for services (MARS) form
Warrington Safeguarding Partnerships has information on the level of needs or speak to our Early Help support team.
We recommend that an Early Help Assessment (EHA) is completed and attached to the MARS form.
A referral is also used to report safeguarding concerns if you feel someone is at immediate risk.
When to complete an Early Help Assessment (EHA)
When universal and self-help is not enough to support a child and family’s needs, we use an EHA. It helps the family understand what is going well for them and what their needs and worries are.
As professionals it helps you to understand how you (and other agencies) help the child and family.
EHA’s should seek to:
When to hold a Team Around the Family (TAF) meeting
TAF meetings are held to bring the family and partners together to discuss strengths, needs and review actions set either in the EHA or previous TAF meetings.
The meetings should be solution focussed and the voice of the child and family should be clearly heard.
As part of the TAF there will a practitioner who will be the named a lead professional. One of their roles is to be the main point of contact for the family and other professionals.
If you complete an EHA it is your responsibility to call the first TAF meeting. Time restrictions for some health professionals may mean this can be discussed case by case.
As a professional you may need support to complete an EHA or TAF, the Early Help Support Team can help with that.
How can we help?
The early help support team is a central team within the early help division that supports council staff and our partners with early help assessments.
Partnership Link Workers (PLW) are here to support with the early help process and paperwork such as EHA’s, review documents and closures.
The PLW do not case hold families.
The PLW’s offer support with the TAF process, this could be in the form of supporting with organising TAF meetings or attending the initial meetings to support staff. It is also their role to offer support, advice and guidance to partners and to sign post to other appropriate services.
How to contact the early help support team
The contact details are for professionals and agencies requesting information and guidance about early help
Do not use this number for safeguarding enquiries.
email - [email protected]
Resources
There is some useful information from Early Help Support Team - myschoolservices.co.uk
Information on early help training is available from Early Help: an introduction | Warrington Safeguarding
Parenting programmes are available depending on the age of the children, family needs, circumstances and desired outcomes.
Lead professional
A lead practitioner should undertake the assessment, provide help to the child and family, act as an advocate on their behalf and co-ordinate the delivery of support services.
A GP, family support worker, school nurse, teacher, health visitor and/or special educational needs co-ordinator could undertake the lead practitioner role. Decisions about who should be the lead practitioner should be taken on a case-by-case basis and should be informed by the child and their family.
It is important to appoint a Lead Professional early in the offer of support. It is particularly important when working using a multi-agency approach as it can help to ensure professional involvement is coordinated, that there is professional accountability, and it ensures the best outcomes for the family, children, and young people. These families being those at Universal plus and Partnership Plus level.
The Early Help Support Team is a non-frontline service and does not directly work with children, young people and their families. The service exists to support professionals from any agency working with children, young people and their families.
Services for residents provided by Warrington Borough Council.
Awarded 25th March 2025
Services and support for families with children and young people up to 19.
Awarded 05th June 2025
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