1.4.1 Early Help Guidance: Integrated Working With Children, Young People and Families With Vulnerable or Complex Needs

Scope of the guidance

Aims and purpose of the guidance

The aims of this guidance are to:

• Improve outcomes for children, young people and their families;
• Ensure a common understanding of integrated working practice and a shared terminology and practice between workers and agencies;
• Ensure that there is consistency and agreement in practice across all local agencies in their approach to working with children, young people and their families with vulnerable or complex needs;
• Embed collaborative processes and procedures in place to identify children, young people and families who need Early Help, and ensure shared responsibility in the use of the Early Help Assessment;
• Work in partnership with parents and carers, using a restorative relationship of high support and high challenge, with the child’s lived experience at the heart of all early help support.

The purpose of the guidance is to:

• Explain key definitions and concepts of Early Help;
• Outline the theory and practice of integrated working;
• Underpin the Rotherham Continuum of Need and the multi-agency process for dealing with identified needs and/or shared concerns about a child, young person and/or their family which do not amount to Significant Harm;
• Define the specific purposes for which agencies have agreed threshold levels and share information to meet their responsibilities to protect and safeguard children in need, and to promote their welfare;
• Set out the responsibilities of agencies to implement internal arrangements to meet the requirements of the model;
• Promote public trust, through transparency and accountability of approach in the management and handling of personal information;
• Support individual and organisational legal compliance, to ensure best management practice.

Good Practice

The following principles should be applied at all times when working with all children, young people and their families:

• Services provided should be flexible, easily accessed and of good quality;
• Facilities should be made available to address the physical and emotional needs of children and young people requiring support;
• Each agency should have clear, coherent and comprehensive policies and procedures to respond to the initial contact, referral and assessment processes, and provision of services, all of which involve families in deciding how their needs will be best met, for more information, see Referring Safeguarding Concerns about Children Procedure;
• Assessment, plans and reviews of children, young people and their families' needs should be carried out in accordance with regulation and guidance, and should include clear objectives and a record of steps taken to achieve these;
• The communication needs of all children, young people and their families should be met when they have contact with any agency. Information about available services should always be provided in ways which they can understand;
• All agencies should have non-discriminatory service delivery and recruitment and employment practices which underpin a commitment to equal opportunities;
• Workers should not be afraid to ask for help to accept assistance, or to escalate concerns if processes are failing;
• Assumptions should not be made about how a particular family works or receives support;
• Where there is concern about the immediate safety of a child or young person, ringing the police as appropriate, and concerns should be referred to MASH (Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub) see Key and Local Contacts. For more information, see Referring Safeguarding Concerns about Children.

Legal context

There are several key areas where integrated working delivers an effective Early Help system. These include:

• Information sharing, which is at the heart of integrated working. Improving outcomes for children, young people and families with vulnerable or complex needs is dependent on professionals sharing information with the child, young person and their family and with each other. Information should be shared in accordance with the seven golden rules of sharing information. See Information Sharing Procedure and Information sharing: Advice for practitioners providing safeguarding services to children, young people, parents and carers (HM Government);
• The Early Help Assessment (EHA) is Rotherham’s common assessment tool for children and families with additional needs and should be used by all agencies working with children, young people, and their families with vulnerable or complex needs. The EHA supports practitioners to assess holistic needs earlier and more effectively and promotes collaboration and information sharing;

• The Lead Professional role is crucial in co-ordinating the actions identified in the assessment process. The Lead Professional provides a single point of contact for children, young people and families with vulnerable or complex needs and ensures a coherent package of services, where there is more than one agency involved. They are also responsible for the coordination of the work, including the organising and chairing of the Team around the Family (TAF) meetings;
• Multi-agency working will include the Team around the Family (TAF). This is a team of practitioners who work directly with the child(ren), young person and family to share information and hold timely meetings and reviews. They work effectively together with the family to improve the outcomes identified in the plan through the Early Help Assessment, ensuring they are achievable and addressing any barriers to achieving positive outcomes;
• Leadership and management. This includes providing effective support and supervision to staff working with children, young people and families; ensuring the safety of their staff and personal development needs, including training, are met. It should ensure that case management decisions are made in a timely way.
  
  

What is Early Help?

Aims of Early Help

There are several common aims to Early Help, including:

• To promote early intervention to assist children, young people and families who have vulnerable or complex needs and are therefore vulnerable to poor outcomes;
• To share information and complete holistic assessments;
• To plan and deliver SMART, planned interventions in response to need at the earliest opportunity;

• To provide services to improve outcomes for children, young people and families;
• To review and measure outcomes for children, young people and families;
• To establish a common language to describe children's development and circumstances;
• To work in partnership with children, young people and families in the assessment process;
• To avoid repeat interviewing of children and families and duplication in assessment processes;
• To have a confident workforce, trained and supported to deliver high quality services to children, young people and families in Rotherham;
• To standardise, streamline and ensure a high quality of record keeping;
• To use technology to assist practitioners to work effectively and deliver timely assessment and plans.

Problems can occur at any time in children's lives and our services need to be responsive to emerging needs at all ages. Early Help is not just aimed at preventing abuse or neglect but at ensuring the best start and improving the life chances of all children and young people, by working with their families. There are nine integrated Early Help Teams based across three localities - North, South and Central - who can provide advice and support for the whole family on issues such as:

1. Parenting and behaviour management;
2. Emotional wellbeing;
3. Substance misuse;
4. Domestic abuse;
5. Financial advice and support, housing and progression to work;
6. Staying safe – outdoors and online.

Identifying, assessing and meeting the needs of children, young people and their families in Rotherham who require Early Help

When concerns affecting a child and family no longer require statutory involvement it is important that good progress is sustained. When Children’s Social Care intends to step out of a case, it is important to discuss with the child, family and professionals involved to agree a structured step down process to Early Help targeted or universal services.

Case Recording

Sharing information where there are concerns of significant harm

When consent is not required

There will be occasional circumstances where consent is not required, for example, where to do so would:

• Place a child or young person at increased risk of Significant Harm;
• Place an adult at risk of serious harm, e.g. domestic abuse;

• Prejudice the prevention or detection of serious crime;
• Lead to unjustified delay in making enquiries about allegations of harm;
• There is a statutory duty or court order to share information;
• The public interest justifies disclosing confidential information without consent.

Whose consent should be sought?

Early Help is a consent based service and this should be sought from the family prior to submitting a Request for Support or submitting the case for Step Down.

Consent should be sought where appropriate from a young person who has the capacity to understand and make their own decisions and who may give (or refuse) consent to information about them being shared.

Early Help Assessment Principles

4.2

Early Help & Family Engagement - 10 Assessment Practice Standards

A good whole family assessment will be outcome focussed and based on robust analysis. It will evidence:

1. Child and Family Views

The views of all family members and significant others, whether living in the family home or not, should be evident in the assessment, for example, it may include references to conversations or direct quotes from parents/carers/children/young people. The assessment should always prioritise the needs of the children.

2. Timeliness

Initial contact should be sought with children and families within a 72 hour timeframe. Assessments should be started within 10 days of receipt of the referral/request for support and completed and recorded. Any decision to extend timescales must be approved by a manager and should be clearly recorded.

3. Multi-disciplinary / agency contributions

The assessment should be completed in collaboration with other professionals previously or currently involved with the family; this should include both adult and children’s services and records/chronologies should inform all assessments.

4. Strength based

The assessment should outline clearly both the strengths and needs for individuals within the family as a whole.

5. Baseline data

The assessment should include clear baseline information to evidence the required change and provide a baseline from which to report outcomes. The data will also provide a holistic picture to inform the TAF (team around the family) (e.g. school attendance, level of anti-social behaviour, developmental milestones).

6. Analyse and identify priorities

The assessment should outline and prioritise the overall strengths and needs for the family through analysis of information gained. The assessment should identify priority areas to be addressed. Outcomes for families will be mutually agreed, with the family and professionals who make up the team around the family.

7. Next steps

The assessment should include a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time bound) plan for the first TAF meeting (e.g. date, proposed TAF members, childcare, venue, interpreter, etc.) This will include clear actions/outputs for the child/family alongside professionals.

8. Impact and Outcome Focussed

Targets will be clear and jargon free and assessments will define what success measures (outcomes) will look like. The focus should always be on outcomes rather than outputs or actions completed.

9. Protected Characteristics

The assessment should include (where relevant) information relating to the GGRRAACCEESS (Gender, Generational, Race, Religion, Abilities, Age, Culture, Class, Education, Ethnicity, Sexuality, Spirituality).

10. Quality Assurance

Disagreements could arise in a number of areas of multi-agency working, however, they are most likely to arise around:

• Thresholds;
• Roles and responsibilities;
• The need for action;
• Communication.

Principles of equality and diversity

The following principles of equality and diversity should apply:

1. All children / young people have a right to grow up safe from harm;
2. All children / young people can potentially be subject to abuse and neglect, regardless of their age, gender, race, culture, physical or learning disabilities, sexual identity or sexual orientation;
3. The assessment process should maintain a focus on the needs of the individual child / young person;
4. The presence of equalities issues, as outlined above, neither explains nor condones acts of omission or commission which results in a child suffering, or being likely to suffer, significant harm;
5. Professionals should guard against myths and stereotypes - both positive and negative - of children / young people and / or their families with equalities issues;
6. Anxiety about being accused of racist, or other discriminatory practice, should not prevent the necessary action being taken to safeguard a child / young person;
7. Abuse to a child / young person may be disguised by a disability. Therefore workers need to be aware of issues related to disabilities when undertaking assessments (see Safeguarding Disabled Children);
8. Workers should be sensitive to differing family patterns and lifestyles, and to child rearing patterns that vary across different groups;
9. Workers should be aware of social factors that serve to discriminate against different groups of families;
10. Working in a diverse society requires workers and organisations to be committed to equality in meeting the needs of all children / young people and families;
11. Workers need to understand the effects of harassment, discrimination and institutional discrimination, as well as cultural misunderstanding or misinterpretations.