What is Early Help?
Early Help is the extra support your family can get if you need it. It may be that you want to prevent a problem, or change things for your family before the problem becomes more serious.
It is not a specific service or team, it’s an approach that brings together people from a range of services and teams who will work together with your whole family to help improve the situation for everyone. It some cases it may only involve the school and support that we can offer.
Early Help can offer support to families from pre-birth to adolescents with all sorts of issues from parenting, employment and school attendance to emotional wellbeing or anti-social behaviour.
When one person in your family has a problem it often affects everyone else too.
You may be worrying about someone’s physical or mental health, a disability or special need, being a carer, domestic abuse, alcohol or drug misuse, harmful behaviour or involvement in crime.
It could be your child, a young person or another adult, but if the whole family is supported as soon as possible to help cope with their difficulties it’s more likely that things will improve and everyone will be happier.
By identifying and building on your strengths as a family we can help and support you to find long term solutions to your issues, as well as developing your skills to help you manage any future challenges.
You will have one main point of contact. This could be someone you already have a good relationship with such as a youth worker or health visitor.
They will be known as your lead worker, and they will help you access the services you need quickly and easily.
The information you and your family provide will only be shared with the people who need to know about it, and only with your permission.
You and your family will be central to drawing up your goals.
Devon Early Help
Plymouth Early Help
