Agenda item

Report of the Director of Community and Children’s Services.

The Committee received a report of the Director of Community and Children’s Services and noted the update.

The vision and aim of Early Help, articulated in the Early Help strategy, is that we reach the right families with the right help, in the right place at the right time. This includes responding to current needs and putting support in place so that escalation to statutory services is prevented wherever possible. The goal is that children and families would be able to manage well without targeted support and that early help would prevent dependency on, or referral to, statutory services in the future. Direct work with children and young people at Tier 2 is coordinated through the CAF and TAC mechanisms. While partner agencies have been encouraged to complete CAFs and to lead TAC meetings, there were no external CAFs completed in 2017/18. Therefore, data in this report refers only to cases held within the Children and Families Team.  It was noted that whilst there were fewer partner CAFs , there was increased activity in respect of allocated Early Help cases in the Children and Families Service.  With a permanent Early Help specialist worker in post , the momentum to maintain strong focus on Early Help was continuing with positive feedback provided on the direct support provided by the Early Help service.