Early Help Service

Helping Early is support for children and families at the earliest possible stage.

This could mean help at key moments in family life - such as health checks for a new baby, preparing for school, or guidance when fostering for the first time. It can also mean support when challenges arise, like a child struggling with school attendance or when a parent is experiencing mental health difficulties.

Helping Early is an approach that supports families from before birth through to age 18 (or up to 25 for young people with special educational needs or disabilities), or care experience. It includes both universal services that are open to all families and more specialist support when needed.

Helping Early can involve promoting health and wellbeing for every family, strengthening the foundations that help children thrive. It also plays a role when families are transitioning out of children’s social care, by helping to build strong support networks and positive opportunities for the future.

Examples of needs where early help support could be needed include: 

• Parents feeling isolated and struggling to cope
• Having a child with additional needs (whether or not they have a diagnosis yet)
• Children going missing from home
• Struggling with your mental health as a parent
• Struggling with your child’s mental health
• Involvement in anti-social behaviour and offending
• Exclusion from school
• Family breakdown
• Co-parenting following a separation
• A child having difficulty settling into school, which may be affecting that child's behaviour
• A young person who is grieving following bereavement  
• Substance misuse by young people
• Working with families where domestic abuse is an issue