Durham Safeguarding Children Partnership

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Early Help Assessment and Child and Family Plan

A new Early Help Assessment and Child and Family Plan has been developed by partners, children, young people, parents and carers which will help families get support they need at the earliest opportunity.

The Early Help Assessment and Child and Family Plan has replaced what was the ‘Single Assessment’ and are much more streamlined, family friendly and signs of safety/wellbeing focussed. These can be accessed through the Children’s Services Portal.

When to submit a plan

You are requested to submit an Early Help Assessment and Child and Family Plan, with family consent, when:

  • You are the lead worker for a child and family and have drawn on support from external services in a Team Around the Family (TAF) arrangement.
  • You are requesting the Early Help Triage Team to review your Early Help Assessment and Child and Family Plan as the TAF  arrangements you have in place are not meeting the needs of the family.
  • You are requesting Early Help Triage Team to review your Early Help Assessment as you are worried about a child and family and feel unable to support them (this may result in information, advice and guidance, an invite to a Locality Early Help Conversation or an offer of intensive family support where needs are more complex).

You do not need to submit and Early Help Assessment or Child and Family Plan if you are supporting a family with the ‘earliest’ of help drawing only on your internal resources which are meeting the family’s needs.  You are however welcome to use the Assessment and Plan but we do not require you to submit it.

If you have made a request for the Early Help Triage Team to review your Early Help Assessment and have already submitted, through the Childrens Services Portal a ‘partner-led’ Early Help Assessment and Child and Family Plan in the last 12 weeks, you do not need to do another. With consent from the family you can simply email earlyhelp@durham.gov.uk putting in the subject header ‘Request for Early Help Triage Review of Early Help Assessment’ and provide the name, address, date of birth of the child and your contact telephone number. The Early Help Triage Team now have up to 5 working days to gather information to help inform an outcome which they will then discuss with you within 5 working days of receiving your request for Triage review.   If an Early Help Assessment, Child and Family Plan or Review has not been submitted within 12 weeks or there is not one, you are required to complete this, please refer to above guidance.

Outcomes of an Early Help Triage review of your Early Help Assessment may result in information, advice and guidance, an invite to a Locality Early Help Conversation or an offer of intensive family support where needs are more complex.

Below is a mock Locality Early Help Conversation should you be invited to one so you know what to expect:

Submitting the plan through Liquidlogic

The benefits in using and submitting the Early Help Assessment and Child and Family Plan or reviews through the Liquid Logic Portal are:

  • They will evidence the volume and quality of early help provided to children and families across the Early Help System which is a new government requirement placed on Local Authorities and its partners.
  • The same Early Help Assessment and Child and Family Plan can also be used to ‘request (additional) early help’ without the need to complete another request form (if the last submission was in the last 12 weeks).
  • Enable us, as an early help system, to better understand and celebrate the outcomes achieved by families with partner support.
  • We will have all information in one place to understand the holistic needs of a family, what support has been offered and what works/does not work. This will help inform decision making of appropriate offers of support and will also consider cumulative harm.
  • Enable professionals who share worries about families to be better connected e.g. Early Help Triage Team will be able to identify if an ‘active’ Early Help Assessment/TAF is in place by a partner and share the lead worker’s details with you.
  • We will be able to provide support to partners when they may be stuck and require additional help in reviewing Child and Family Plans/TAF arrangements using our Early Help Advisor Team.
  • Allow you to easily update/review the Child and Family Plan.
  • Provide a record of the Early Help Assessment and Child and Family Plans you are leading on and have submitted so you can save to your own systems.

Technical support using Liquidlogic

For support, please contact the Early Help Advisor Team or contact the Early Help Triage Team on 03000 267 979.

Supporting material

A number of supporting materials are available to support you in completing and submitting Early Help Assessments and Child and Family Plans which have been developed by partners: