Early Help support (young people - SEND)

When we hear about ‘Early Help’ we think about babies and young children (often referred to as ‘Early Years’) but ‘Early Help’ actually for EVERYONE – no matter how old you are!

Everyone needs help sometimes. The good thing about getting help EARLY is that it can stop:

things from getting worse
something you might be worried about from happening if you ask for help before it happens – this is often called PREVENTION.

You can receive ‘early help’ from your:

school
Doctor
family support worker
youth worker.

There are 3 different types of Early Help support.

Universal support

These services:

are available to EVERYONE in lots of different places
you can access them yourself
provide you with what most children and young people need and can often prevent any problems from arising. For example: school, GP, sports clubs, libraries.

Find universal support services.

Additional support

If you are worried about yourself or things at:

home
school
in your neighbourhood

share it with an adult you trust so some additional support can be put in place.

The adult you trust and you might speak to could be a:

teacher
sports coach
youth club volunteer
religious leader.

They can support you by:

making a plan
find the right services
work with services through a ‘Team Around the Child and their Family’ process to make sure the plan is working.

If you feel comfortable enough to talk to a parent or carer about what you need help with, they can help you to find the right support by:

talking to one of the adults you trust
finding out about services that can support you.

Targeted support

When:

there are a number of things that you or your family needs support with
the additional support that you have been given isn’t helping

a family support worker or targeted youth worker may be able to offer further support.

Working with you, your family and other trustworthy adults and services, they will complete an Early Help Assessment and create an action plan with everyone to find a way to make things better.

Everyone will work together to support you through the ‘Team around the child and their family’ process where you all meet regularly and talk about how the different activities and interventions are helping you.

To get Targeted Early Help support: