Early Help
- About Early Help
- Early Help for Families
- Early Help for Professionals
- If you have a safeguarding concern
About Early Help
Early help in Haringey can be offered by all of the services and providers – internal, external, voluntary and community based - that enable families to achieve long-term, positive outcomes, become more resilient, and prevent the escalation of their needs.
Effective early help is about providing the right support to families, at the right time, to achieve change that lasts. This means doing this early before problems get worse. It is available to families with children and young people of any age. Children, young people and their families will often work best with those who already know them, with some extra support from the Early Help Service.
The Early Help Service aims for families to increase their ability to manage difficulties in the future, working alongside partner and community networks, to reduce their reliance on long-term services and support. We work with families who are committed to behavioural change and consent to us being involved.
Conversations 4 Change
Conversations 4 Change (C4C) is Haringey’s approach to early help. It puts children, young people and families at the centre of the offer and develops a plan that addresses the needs of the whole family. C4C will be timely and flexible, with a focus on direct work with families, making sure that the emphasis is on what is working well and what needs to change for the family, in order to make sure that children are safe and able to benefit from the opportunities open to them.
The Early Help Service also has a dedicated Youth Team delivering activities and interventions provision at Bruce Grove and other sites, including specific responses to the needs of young carers. This team works closely with targeted teams and schools to support delivery of Haringey's Young People’s strategy. Find out more about the youth offer (external link).
Early Help Offer video
Watch our Early Help Offer video to see what's available to families living in Haringey. It features testimonials from real life families who have received support from the Early Help Service. We hope this will encourage more families to benefit from the help available.
Note for iPhone users and Youtube. There is a known bug with iOS and Youtube, Two buttons are read before the player but provide no functionality. We advise that you skip these to access the content.
Early Help for Families
If you and your family are struggling to cope and need some practical support to move things forward, help is at hand.
Families can face challenges with a range of issues and Haringey’s Early Help Service can offer advice and guidance as well as practical, hands-on support, with a whole family approach. We will work alongside you with other professionals to enable you to make and sustain the changes needed to improve your family situation.
Supporting you and your family, and understanding your concerns, we will create an action plan describing how we will work together to help you, supported by other professionals and services.
We want to understand your family’s strengths and what is not working so well.
To do this, we will work in partnership with you and, with your consent, we will work alongside colleagues from areas such as employment, health and education, who may know you well and are also able to help. Working together, we will address the issues you and your family are facing and, over time, build your confidence, knowledge and skills to enable you to deal with future challenges.
Through ‘Conversations 4 Change’ we want to help you and your family overcome challenges you may be struggling with. Your commitment and willingness to change is key to a brighter future.
What we can offer you
- Parenting support
- Managing challenging behaviour
- Improving your child’s attendance at school
- Reducing the risk of exclusion
- Help with accessing work
- Help with managing budgets and debts
- Managing health issues including drug and alcohol misuse
- Improving family communication
- Prevention of offending behaviour
What you can expect from us
- A two-way conversation
- Practical hands on support
- Advice and guidance
- Whole family approach
If you think the Early Help Service could support you, please speak to your children’s centre, school or health visitor and they can contact us on your behalf.
See our Parenting page to see what support and services are available.
If you have concerns about a child’s safety see our safeguarding section below.
Early Help for Professionals
The Early Help Offer in Haringey – Conversations 4 Change
Haringey’s approach to Early Help is Conversations 4 Change (C4C), which aims to provide a timely, flexible and proportionate response to families. C4C is based on trust, honest dialogue and clarity about what is working well, what we are worried about and what needs to change. This is linked to the Signs of Safety approach which has been adopted by all teams in Haringey Children and Young People’s Services, which means that families will experience a familiar approach along their journey of change.
C4C has three phases
- Conversations 4 Change - The Lead Professional will meet with the family to find out what is working well and what support is needed, pulling together a team around the family (TAF) to devise a roadmap to success
- Checking in on Change - the TAF meets regularly with the family to review progress and refresh the roadmap
- Celebrate and Sustain Change - once the family have completed their journey of change and achieved their desired outcomes, the support needed to sustain change is clarified as the family step down to universal services
What the Early Help Service can offer
Contact will be regular and purposeful, with an emphasis on practical support and direct work. The named Early Help professional will work with the whole family and deliver interventions that may for example, focus on parenting support and managing difficult behaviour or family routines, using evidence based interventions.
The Lead Professional will work jointly with the TAF network taking responsibility to support the family to achieve change. They will be supported in thinking critically about the progress being made and should there be concerns that children are not safe, these would be discussed with the TAF and stepped up into Children’s Safeguarding and Support Service as appropriate.
Early Help will also offer additional support to schools in the borough, with a menu of options available. Please see the link below for a description of this.
Early Help Localities
The borough is divided into three localities (West, Central and East), each with its own team. The teams provide flexible, hands on support and interventions for families, children and young people with additional needs. This is led in each of the three areas by a Locality Manager, who works with local networks to promote and embed integrated, whole family working supported by the use of Conversations 4 Change. This operating structure adds value to and collaborates with existing early help provision in children’s centres, schools and other universal settings.
The Early Help Service also includes the Youth Team, which provides a universal youth provision offer, as well as practitioners working within the Localities. There are also leads for Young Carers and the Youth Council. More information about the youth offer can be found on our Youth Space Website (external link).
How to request a service
If you have concerns about a child’s safety see our safeguarding section below
The Early Help Service can be accessed when the universal offer and support available in schools, children’s centres and health centres doesn’t meet the family needs. A request for the service can be made through the Single Point of Access (SPA) team.
The forms associated with the C4C phases are as follows:
- Conversation 4 Change (Word, 75KB), which shapes our identification and analysis of need and supports us in identifying the areas the TAF and family are looking for support with
- Checking in on Change (Word, 73KB), which allows us to review our progress with the family and ensure that their journey is captured fully. We would also use this to inform the future roadmap with the family
- Successes achieved are noted in the Celebrate and Sustain Change (Word, 61KB) document, which then also clarifies any continued support needed to sustain change, as the family step down to universal services
At this time we do not require that the C4C forms are used when requesting a service from the Early Help Service – these are here to allow you to see what will be used by the service to work with families. The Early Help Service is guided by standards to promote a high quality service. To review our full practice guidance please see the Operational Guidance (PDF, 777KB).
Families appropriate for C4C are those with additional needs, which cannot be met by universal settings, or emerging concerns that the family may need support from Children’s Services. Essentially, these are those families who are below the Tier 3 statutory threshold for a Child in Need of Safeguarding and Support or a targeted service - please see the LSCB Needs Thresholds Guidance (PDF, 1MB) for more information.
If you are working with a family you think might benefit from the additional support offered by the Early Help Service, please contact your locality team for a discussion.
| Early Help Localities | Areas covered | Phone number |
|---|---|---|
| West Locality | Muswell Hill and Highgate, Wood Green, Hornsey and Stroud Green Network Learning Communities | 020 8489 5814 |
| Central Locality | Haringey and West Green, North East Tottenham Network Learning Communities | 020 8489 2403 |
| East Locality | South East Tottenham Network Learning Community | 020 8489 5073 |
Early Help Teams School Links - contact details for linked workers
Prevention Through Partnership
Prevention Through Partnership – Haringey’s integrated response to support families in need of Early Help is a multi-agency collaboration of support services that responds to families at a Tier 2 threshold, under London Safeguarding Children’s Board guidelines. At the heart of this offer, is the objective of helping Schools and Early Years settings draw in services to support the families you work with, by providing a menu of interventions available locally. This offer does not replace or deter from any existing process or offer from the Local Authority to work with families who meet the threshold for a Family Support Worker from the Early Help and Prevention Service. It complements this core offer and is intended to support your settings with building resilience to work together to deliver help at the earliest point and start to build a Team Around the Family that will hopefully reduce the risk of any escalation or need for further services later on.
If you have a safeguarding concern
If you have an immediate concern about the safety of a child, please call us.
- Monday to Thursday 8.45am to 5pm; Friday 8.45am to 4.45pm
Tel: 020 8489 4470 - Out of office hours, including weekends
Tel: 020 8489 0000
