Agenda item

To consider and comment on the Early Help provision in Sandwell and its impact on those who access the service.

The Board received an overview of Early Help provision in Sandwell. Early Help delivered a range of early interventions for children, young people and families at their earliest point of need.

Early Help was a key focus in Sandwell with the Grant Thornton Review, LGA Peer Challenge Report and feedback from Ofsted 2022 all highlighting how important it was to get the provision right.

Early Help provision was made up of a range of partners including the Council, Sandwell Children’s Trust, voluntary sector, Police and Health Services focused on preventing escalation of problems and reducing the number of children and young people requiring statutory services. Early Help was able to be flexible in its approach, which was not always the case with statutory services. The Sandwell Early Help Strategy, which had been launched in February 2022, brought together statutory guidance and best practice, embedding partnership working across all approaches.

The Early Help Partnership oversaw the implementation of the Early Help Strategy and reported in to the Children and Families Strategic Partnership. The Sandwell Children’s Safeguarding Partnership also received regular updates and assurances on the progress against the Strategy.

The Board noted the universal services that could be accessed by all, and the progression path to statutory services.

To deliver the multi-agency Early Help provision, there were a number of tools:

·      Early Help Assessment – an assessment completed with families to identify needs and develop a support plan.

·      Early Help Module – an electronic system to record all multi-agency intervention.

·      Team Around the Family – a multi-agency meeting attended by the child and family to develop and monitor the support plan.

·      Lead Professional Role –the main point of contact for families receiving support.

Members noted a number of changes that had been made over the last few years, including the appointment of three dedicated police officers by West Midlands Police to work across schools in Sandwell including  Pupil Referral Units.  

(Councillor Preece left the meeting.)

The impact of these changes had been demonstrated with:-

·      a 3% increase in  multi-agency Early Help led by agencies across the partnership since July 2022 with a further 2% increase since November 2022.

·       a 20% increase in the number of families accessing the Strengthening Families Service that would suggest more families were being supported in the Early Help arena.

·      there were 400 fewer children open to social care compared to 2021;

·      demand for Early Help training had increased.

The areas for further development within Early Help were noted as:

·      the ongoing promotion of the Strategy and the messaging around Early Help to ensure commitment and engagement from all partners;

·      the Early Help data dashboard to be used to proactively challenge partners across partnership;

·      further reduction in the amount of Multi Agency Request Forms received by Sandwell Children’s Trust that resulted in no statutory social work intervention;

·      continued cultural change across the partnership to ensure a focus on prevention it at every level.

(Councillor Mayo left the meeting.)

Following comments and questions from members of the Board, the following responses were made, and issues highlighted:-

·      every child had access to the universal offer, and home visits would only be undertaken if necessary as resources did not allow for universal home visits;

·      the Health Partnership actively engaged with young families to identify any concerns;

·      partnership events had allowed for networking and relationship building across services and for providers to understand what services were available within the locality;

·      the Partnership’s Police officers had been working out of the Strengthening Families Hubs working with partners across all services;

·      support and supervision was offered to staff on a regular basis to share experiences;