The Early Response Hub

We work with parents, children, young people and alongside our partners in the wider early help community
Who should offer Early Help?
1. As with safeguarding, Early Help is everyone’s responsibility. As a basic principle, the first person to offer support to a child or young person and their family should be the professional identifying the issue, for example, this might be someone at your child’s school or a medical professional who you feel you can trust.
  
  The 'Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018' guidance says that for Early Help to be effective, all local organisations should work together to identify and assess the needs of children and families who would benefit from Early Help. In West Berkshire, these assessments of need are known as My Family Plans. You can ask any professional to do a My Family Plan.
  
  If you are a professional, click here for further information and support on My Family Plans.
  
  If you are a family, click here to view our My Family Plan "Family Advice" page.
Information for professionals:
1. The form below is a referral form for the Early Response Hub under Level 2b of the West Berkshire Threshold Document. Click here to see more information on the thresholds.
  
  Some families require support but do not require a referral to Children and Family Services. If you are a lead professional working with a family, you could act as the lead professional in a My Family Plan, coordinating a plan of support for that family.
  
  If you need support with new or existing My Family Plans, you can ask for advice from our My Family Plan consultation service - click here to make a request to access the My Family Plan consultation service.
Information for families:
1. The Early Response Hub is a multi-agency group of professionals with different specialisms. They offer advice and interventions to work with you to create a support plan. The support plan helps to address the difficulty (or difficulties) that you are experiencing.
  
  If a referral is made about your child/children and your family do not require a social worker but you do need some support, the Early Response Hub will contact you to discuss the concerns and explore a support plan. The Hub aims to respond to referrals within 3 working days, or 5 working days if we arrange to visit you.
  
  Below we have listed further details on the services that our Children and Family Services department offers. Click each heading to expand.
Triage and assessment
1. The Early Response Hub identifies support plans for children and their families living in West Berkshire. Some support plans can be identified within three working days (or five working days with a visit). However, some families may have more complicated needs and the Early Response Hub may undertake a Family First Assessment which can be completed in up to twenty-five working days.
Intervention
1. Some families may have already had a social worker complete an assessment of their needs that has identified that they would benefit from targeted intervention to support them with a particular issue. This intervention is typically for up to six weeks.
Missing
1. The Missing and Exploitation Coordinator looks after return home interviews for children who are living in West Berkshire, aged 10 and over, and are reported as missing to the Police.
Young carers
1. The Young Carers Project identifies, assesses and supports young carers living in West Berkshire.
  
  Click here to access more information for Young Carers.
Youth work
1. Youth workers provide one-to-one support to young people aged 11 to 17 years old who have an area of need (for example: concerns about online safety, concerns about substance misuse).
Reducing Parental Conflict
1. The Reducing Parental Conflict Coordinator delivers training to professionals and parent/carers on the issue of parental conflict. If you are a professional and would like to access more information on parental conflict, you can view our Parental Conflict: Information for Professionals page.
Family Group Conferencing service
1. The Family Group Conferencing Service provides family group conferences to children and families who are open to Children and Family Services, to support families in identifying a family plan.
  
  You can read more about our Family Group Conferencing Services on our 'what to expect: family group conferences' page.
How to access Early Help support
1. If you would like to make a referral to the Early Response Hub, please click the "Next" button below to view our overview page on the referral process.

Session timeout

The Early Response Hub

We work with parents, children, young people and alongside our partners in the wider early help community

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