Accessing support for your family

Getting help

If you think you and your family might benefit from some support, you should ask a professional who you know. This could be your doctor, or a teacher at your child’s school. They can tell you more about Early Help.

You can also contact the Early Help Hub: early.helphub@cambridgeshire.gov.uk or call: 01480 376 666 (office hours). If you don't know who to ask for help.

Sometimes a professional may approach you, and ask whether you would like to talk about Early Help and how it could help your family.

If you are a professional working with a family, please see the information in our Integrated Front Door (MASH and Early Help Hub) section.

Taking part in an assessment

If you decide to take up Early Help, a professional will talk with you to understand your needs. They will listen to any challenges that you or your family are experiencing and summarise the discussion in an Early Help Assessment. This will consider the needs of your whole family and help everyone understand your family’s situation.

The Early Help Assessment will include the things you want to change and things that may be of concern to others as well. The assessment is to explore all of these things, not to place blame. It is important you share as much information as you can because this will help get you the right support. However it is up to you how much you say.

To work with you we need to talk to services which can help you. We also have to record our work with you. It is important you know how we record and use your information. Please see the privacy notice for more information.

The Early Help Assessment is entirely voluntary. The professional who gathers the information for the assessment will ask you to confirm that you are consenting to the assessment and have been told about how we keep and use your information. This allows the information in the assessment to be shared with the services that can help you.

Services working together

The Early Help Assessment will be sent to the Early Help Hub. This is a team which will decide which service/s will be best to support your needs. The Early Help Hub will look at the assessment and possibly talk to other professionals who know your family.

If there are several professionals who will support your family, we will work closely together. One person will become your 'lead professional', and they will co-ordinate the work of the other services. Your lead professional will be your contact for Early Help. They could be from a range of different agencies, for example someone from your child's school, a family worker or health visitor. You may want to suggest a lead professional for your family.

The Team Around the Family and the family plan

The Team Around the Family is a generic term used to describe the group of professionals, volunteers and members of the wider family who are involved. It must include family members working alongside professionals. The Team Around the Family could just be the Lead Professional and the family. However it is likely that it will include a group of others as well.

The Team Around the Family works through regular meeting set up and chaired by the Lead Professional to coordinate the work agreed in the Family Plan. The Family Plan will be reviewed, its impact monitored, changes made as required, to achieve the outcomes for the family.

The lead professional may work with one or more services to meet the needs identified in the EHA. They will create a single 'family plan'. The family plan will include:

the things that you want to see change
the support that will be provided for you and different members of your family
goals or measures so that everyone involved knows what to look out for to see when things are getting better

When all of the work has come to an end, or the 'team around the family' agree that a Family Plan is no longer needed.

The family should receive confirmation in writing

The final plan should be stored on Liquidlogic. It will be reviewed by the Early Help Hub or a Targeted Support District Team to confirm that the family’s needs have been met. Feedback will be provided to the Lead professional.

Checking how it is going

The Team Around the Family should meet, with you, at least once every three months. This allows them to make sure you are moving towards your goals. They can also make changes to the support you are receiving, when necessary.

When your goals have been achieved, we will hold one last Team Around the Family meeting to celebrate success.

Achieving the goals