LIS Early Help Offer

Lons Infant School Early Help Offer

What is Early Help?

Every family has its ups and downs. Being a parent is hard work and there are no instructions. Sometimes, you and your child may need extra support. This can be at any point through their school life. There is nothing to be ashamed of in asking for help. 'Early Help' helps you recognise what is going well for you, where you may benefit from extra help and who is the best person to work with you and your family to make this happen. This may be through an Early Help Assessment (EHA).

We seek to work in collaboration with families, with openness, integrity and understanding and with the needs of the child at the centre of all we do.

'Early Help' is everyone’s responsibility. As such you can speak with any member of the school team who would be happy to work with you. Usually, class teachers or the school office are the first contact for the child or the family.

In school, we have trained specialists who form part of our 'Early Help' team:

Miss Guthrie – Head Teacher and Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL)

Miss - Oakley Class Teacher and Deputy DSL

Mrs Yendle - ELSA and Deputy DSL

Mr Castle – School Business Manager and Deputy DSL

The Family Support worker (who works between Lons Infant school, Ripley Nursery, Ripley Infants and Ripley Juniors)

Safeguarding and child protection

The school has a clear and detailed safeguarding. We all work together to ensure that rigorous and robust systems are in place within the school to ensure the safety of all our children. We always act in the interest of the child.

Early Help Assessment

This starts with a chat with a member of staff about what is going well and what’s not going well for you and your family, they will let you know what sort of help is available. This chat might lead to an EHA. This is how we get a full picture of the whole family. We use it to help you see what is working well and identify the area you could do with a bit of extra support. It’s your choice to take part in the assessment and you can choose who else is involved.

Every person and family is different, but an EHA will:

Help you see what’s going well and not so well for your family;
Help you and others see what support you might need;
Create a picture of your family’s circumstances, which can be shared with your permission so you don’t have to repeat yourself to different workers;
Help you to be part of the team of people working together on the same plan to get things going well again.

What happens after the EHA?

With your permission, people from different organisations working with your family will share information and work together to help support you and your children. This could be school, health visitors etc. and may be followed by a ‘Team Around the Family’ (TAF) meeting.

Why do I need to give my permission?

Your personal information belongs to you. Agencies can’t share your information unless you agree, because your information is protected by law.

What is a ‘Team Around the Family’ meeting?

The family and workers involved come together to make a support plan. This is reviewed at regular intervals to ensure that progress is being made for your family and that the right support is in place. At this meeting, you choose a lead worker. This can be any one of the people working with your family - you might choose the worker you see most often or the person you find most approachable. Your lead worker will arrange the review meeting and be someone you can speak to at any point about any concerns or issues you and your family are experiencing.

At Lons Infant School we meet the needs of our children through a variety of ways.

Step 1 – support for all families.

We have an open door policy to communicate, providing time to talk to all parents, children and families, to ensure all children are safe, happy and learning.

	Support offered
Open door policy	We are available to talk via telephone, class dojo messages and face to face, and provide time for our parents to communicate and work with us e.g. through Parent Consultations and good daily availability.
Pupil voice	Our children are actively encouraged to speak about any concerns they have to a member of staff. They know that our staff take all concerns very seriously and they know that they can speak to any responsible adult in school. The pupil voice is also represented via the School Council which meets regularly in school. Children can put worries into the Worry Monsters/Worry Boxes in each classroom.
Developing key skills	We have an effective PSHE curriculum which supports children and develops key skills, not only for school, but for life.

Step 2 – support for all families

We work more closely with families and children who need extra support. We put in place intervention in school to support children who need it, be this for academic or mental well-being.

DSL/DDSL	At Lons, EHAs help identify the specific needs of our children and families, so that they can be assigned to the correct interventions for their educational, social, physical and emotional needs. The Head Teacher manages the allocation of pupils to intervention and support groups.
School nurse	We can refer children to the school nursing team. You can speak directly with the school nurse team or we can refer you as a school.
Health	Register with appropriate medical support. Referral to appropriate medical specialist. Implementation of the children with medical needs policy.
Family Resource Worker	We have access to an Early Help Hub in the locality, where there is a family support worker who we can contact to try to find the right kind of support for you.
Attendance	Access to relevant agencies will be signposted if appropriate to enable good attendance.

We signpost families and seek support from different support agencies. There are a number of support agencies out there who we can access or signpost you to if you are experiencing difficulties at home. There are also agencies which can contact independently should you wish to do so, who might be able to help and provide the support for your family:

Family Support Workers
Local Community Police Officers
Mental Health

Step 3

We seek further support from services to best support our families.

The DSL will work with parents and children and family’s services to organise additional support. Support could involve:

Children and families team
Multi-agency safeguarding team
Safeguarding children board
Social workers

Helplines

Police 999 in an emergency or 101 for a non-emergency situation

National Domestic Violence helpline: 0808 2000 247

National Centre for Domestic Abuse: 0844 8044 999

CARP: 0845 602 9035 providing advice for victims of domestic violence