We recognise the most important influence in a child’s life is family. Children who grow up with safe, stable and nurturing relationships form stronger friendships, develop greater resilience, achieve more in school and are more likely to build positive relationships throughout their lives.
We are child focussed in our intent but recognise that the most effective way to help and protect children is to work alongside the whole family. Therefore strengthening families is central to our aims as we know that families have greater capacity for change when we work with them as partners. This is part of an evidence based approach known as Restorative Practice.
We aim to embed a culture across our workforce where dignity and respect is the basis for our interventions. Every member of staff will understand the principles of Restorative Practice and its ethos will underpin all of our work and align to the borough vision of ‘Forging a Future for all’.
Early Help
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Welcome to the Early Help (EH) area of the Dudley CPP website. Here you will be able to find out more about Early Help, meet the team (Family Solutions) and find out how you can access support across the borough.
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About Early Help
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Early Help in Dudley is overseen by the Children and Young People’s Alliance Board. The Early Help Strategy sets out the vision for Early Help in Dudley and was endorsed by the board in September 2016. We have been working on a revised Early Help Strategy which will officially launch on 20th April 2018
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A key part of the EH operating model is cluster based working. Our 5 family centres create the basis for delivery across the borough.
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On the Early Help desk (part of the Children and Young People's Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub) we manage & review Early Help referrals Level 3 and below coming in and then pass these on to one of our 5 family centres
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Within the 5 centres allocation partnership meetings take place on a Thursday every other week.
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Professionals from a number of agencies such as health, education, police or community service come together to discuss the cases and decide on the most appropriate response and who is to respond. It could be that a family support worker from the cluster is allocated
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We use the Early Help Assessment as a starting point for all of our work which is followed up with regular reviews alongside the Early help support plan.
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Following a period of EH involvement we will either step the case down to a single agency response e.g. for school to monitor, close if no further involvement is required or step up if the problems have escalated
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Key Information/Links
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Dudley’s Thresholds Framework
Early Help Offer
Early Help Assessment
Early Help Cluster Map October 2017
Early Help Strategy April 2018
All the above documents/information is available from the safeguarding website
Children and Young People's MASH
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Family Solutions
Early Help is everyone's responsibility. It is about cross agency working and supporting children, young people and their families at the earliest opportunity to ultimately prevent the need for statutory intervention.
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