Essex Effective Support for Children and Families

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Early Help

Team Around the Family (TAF) and Early Help Plan (EHP)

Where there is more than one service working alongside a child and family, it is helpful for the family and involved services to hold a Team Around the Family meeting, to share information and co-ordinate an Early Help Plan together. A Team Around the Family template can be downloaded here.

An Early Help Plan is a tool to use with the family to discuss and record the needs, strengths, goals and views that they identify, leading to a plan to support them. There are many different types of early help planning tools. An early help template can be downloaded here.
Alternatively, practitioners may choose to use or amend assessment and planning tools from within their own agency. 
 
Please find a leaflet for Parents here.

If you would like to find out how to do a TAF and/or complete an Early help Plan we have how to guides below.

You can also contact your local TAFSO… please email TAFSO@essex.gov.uk and your local Team around the Family Support Officer will make contact with you.

Who are the Team Around the Family Support Officers?

Your local Team around the Family Support Officer is now available to support all practitioners working within level 2

of the Essex Effective Support Windscreen of Need to:

Increase your confidence to complete Early Help Plans

Increase your confidence to hold Team Around the Family meetings


Reduce the need for future level 3 & 4 intervention

  • Support you to identify families that require level 2 intervention
  • Signpost you to appropriate services available locally
  • Advise you on how to involve children/young people and their family members at each stage of the process
  • Advise you on how to engage challenging and difficult to reach families

What does a Team around the Family Support Officer do? Your Team around the Family Support Officer can facilitate the following:

  • Bespoke in-house training and workshops
  • Face to Face coaching or by telephone
  • Quadrant based multi-agency workshops
  • Model a Team around the Family meeting
  • Shadow a Team around Family meeting & provide feedback

Offer Early Help Advice & guidance

Email your quadrant-based Team around the Family Support Officer asking for contact to be made with you: TAFSO@essex.gov.uk

Resources for Safeguarding Leads

A range of presentations have been developed to use as tools for safeguarding leads to disseminate down to the wider children and families workforce in Essex. These presentations have been produced with the support of a Head Teacher.

- Understanding need

- Early Help approaches

- Introduction to the Children and Families Hub

- Requesting Support at Level 3 & 4

 

Practitioner Guides:

- Understanding Needs of a Family

- Effective Support Windscreen

- What is the Effective Support Directory

- Putting together an Early Help Plan

- What is a TAF

- How do I hold a TAF

- How do I hold a TAF virtually

 

Posters for Display:

- TAFSO

- Directory of Services

Essex Early Help Offer

This document aims to bring together all the key components of the current Essex Early Help Offer and its purpose is to provide a cohesive picture of that offer for those organisations and professionals who support vulnerable children, young people and families. Early Help is the identification of, and response to, emerging problems for children, young people and their families. It is a way of working that supports families, children and young people to overcome difficulties and build their resilience, so that problems do not escalate and they are able to thrive and live and engage happily in their communities.

The document can be downloaded here.

Early Help Plan (EHP)

An Early Help Plan is a tool to use with the family to discuss and record the needs, strengths, goals and views that they identify, leading to a plan to support them. There are many different types of early help planning tools. An early help template can be downloaded here.
Alternatively, practitioners may choose to use or amend assessment and planning tools from within their own agency.

Where there is more than one service working alongside a child and family, it is helpful for the family and involved services to hold a Team Around the Family meeting, to share information and co-ordinate an Early Help Plan together. A completed Early Help Plan remains the responsibility of the supporting agency/service to retain, in accordance with their own record keeping procedures. 
A copy of the completed Early Help Plan should be given to all family members that were involved, including children and young people (age and understanding permitting).