Early help is provided to children, young people and families who are struggling and feel in need of some additional support and to those who research tells us are at a higher than average risk of experiencing problems.
The aim of early help services is to ideally prevent but otherwise to resolve any issues before they become more serious and require specialist support.
The Isle of Wight Children and Young People’s Strategic partnership recognises that the best outcomes are achieved when a combination of services work together to ensure that the whole family are able to work towards better life chances of their children.
One of our main sources of local data is the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) that is carried out every year in partnership with health services. This tells us about the current needs of children, young people and families on the island and anticipates future need. Most crucially it identifies groups whose needs are not being met and who are experiencing poor outcomes. This information informs the design and focus of our services and our commissioning priorities.
Concerns about how well a child or young person is progressing may be raised by a professional, parent/carer or the child/young person themselves.
A Common Assessment Framework (CAF) is then used to identify their needs. CAF is a standardised shared assessment and planning framework for use across all children’s services and all local areas in England. At the centre of the development of the CAF is the principle that it is child/young person centred, and can be shared across agencies and between professionals – as appropriate, and with the family/young person’s permission.
The use of CAF facilitates early identification of needs, leading to co-ordinated provision of services, involving a lead professional, and sharing information to avoid duplication of assessments.
The Isle of Wight Council together with schools and colleges and partners in health, crime, community safety and the voluntary sector provide a wide range of early help for children young people and their families.
Our early help strategy provides information on programmes that have been split into four age related themes as follows;
We recognise, as emphasised in a number of recent national reviews, that a child’s experience in the foundation years from 0-5 are crucial in determining a child’s long term developmental outcomes
Our early help provision for this age group includes;
The focus of our early help provision at primary school age acknowledges the importance of the family and community as well as the school in providing the right support and stimulation to enable a child to thrive.
Positive parenting continues to be a focus for children of secondary school age as does ensuring that young people attend school. We know that truancy from school impacts significantly on a young person’s educational attainment and increases risk of ill health in adulthood. Our focus at this age is also on positive activity to reduce the risk of anti social behaviour and involvement in criminal activity.
Our provision for this age group includes;
We provide a range of provision to support families with varying needs and levels of support. These include;
Many of these services are available in the community, through schools,health services and voluntary organisations. You can look at the links on this section of the website to find out contact details of the organisations.
If you are a parent or carer or a professional who is worried about how well a child or young person is progressing; it could be concerns about their health, development welfare, behaviour, progress in learning or any other aspects of their well being then you can contact the Children’s First Response Unit based at County Hall, Newport, Isle of Wight. Tel: (01983) 814373.
For more information about Children's First Response please click here