Early Help
What is Early Help?
Every family has its ups and downs. Being a parent is hard work and there are no instructions. Sometimes, you or your children may need extra support. This may be before your children are born, when they are very young, or throughout their school years. There is nothing to be ashamed of in asking for help. Early Help helps you recognise what’s 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).
Early Help Assessment
This starts with an Early Help conversation. You’ll chat with an Early Help worker about what’s going well and what’s not going well for you and your family, and they will let you know what sort of help is available. This conversation might lead to an Early Help Assessment (EHA). This is how we get a full picture about the whole family. We use it to help you see what is working well and identify the areas 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 should be involved.
Every person and family is different, but an Early Help Assessment
(EHA) will:
- Help you see what’s going well and not so well for your family
- Help you and others to 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 a 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, mentors, nursery, etc. This may then be followed by a ‘Team around the family’ meeting.
Why do I need to give my permission (also known as consent)?
Your personal information belongs to you. Agencies can’t share your information unless you agree, because your information is protected by law under the Data Protection Act.
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’ll 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 meetings and be someone you can speak to at any point about any concerns or issues you and your family are experiencing.
How can I find more information about help and support available?
manchester.gov.uk/helpandsupportmanchester is an online directory where you’ll find information about the services and support in your local area.
If you would prefer to talk to someone, you can ask for more information about support available at:
- Your child’s school, college or nursery
- Your local Sure Start Centre
- Your local library or community centre.
