How to contact us for advice
We provide advice to parents, grandparents, relatives, friends and kinship carers who are involved with children’s services in England or need their help. We can help you understand processes and options when social workers or courts are making decisions about your child’s welfare.
Our advice service is free, independent and confidential.
To speak to an adviser, please call our free and confidential advice line 0808 801 0366 (Monday to Friday 9.30am to 3pm, excluding Bank Holidays). For Textphone dial 18001 followed by the advice line number. Or you can ask us a question via email using our advice enquiry form.
Our online advice forums are an anonymous space where parents and kinship carers (also known as family and friends carers) can get legal and practical advice, build a support network and learn from other people’s experiences.
Our get help and advice section describes the processes that you and your family are likely to go through, so that you know what to expect. Our webchat service can help you find the information and advice on our website which will help you understand the law and your rights.
Most families will need some help to bring up their children. This may come from family and friends. But some families may need support from local agencies. Education (schools, nurseries), housing, and health services are all examples of agencies.
Agencies to work together to provide support as soon as problems emerge. This is because tackling a problem early can stop things getting worse. Early help can be given to a family with a child up to age 18. So the child may be a baby, toddler, at primary school or a teenager.
Information about Early help is found in Chapter 1 of government statutory guidance called Working Together to Safeguard Children, 2018. This is about agencies working to keep children safe and well. It supports practitioners to do what the law says they need to. The courts have said that agencies ‘must have regard’ to the guidance. This means they should follow it, unless there is good reason not to.
Early help services are aimed at supporting children and families without a social worker. Social workers are not involved in early help assessments or providing early help services. But sometimes social workers ask early help services to provide assistance to children and families they are working with.
An early help assessment is the first step in the early help process. Read our FAQs below to find out more about what is involved.
Click on the drop downs below to read answers to our FAQs about early help services and early help plans.
What sort of early help services are available?
Government guidance states that that local areas should have a range of effective ‘evidence-based services in place to meet a child’s assessed needs early’ (see Working Together 2018 at page 16, paragraph 12).
A local threshold document should set out the type and level of early help services provided in the local area. It is worth checking with the local Family/Children’s Information Service about what help is available. Examples of early help services include:
Can support be provided before an early help assessment is complete?
Yes. Government guidance is clear that social workers and other practitioners should not wait until the end of any assessment before putting support in place (see Working Together 2018 at page 27, paragraph 52).
If needs are identified at any stage of an early help assessment, support should be provided for the child and family as soon as possible. A parent or carer can tell the lead practitioner if they feel support needs to be put in place urgently. Assessments can be done quickly if necessary.
What information should be in an early help plan?
The early help assessment should identify the help the child and family need. This should be help which prevents needs escalating to the point where children’s services would have to become involved to do an assessment (see Working Together 2018 at page 15, paragraph 8).
At the end of the assessment report there should be a clear early help plan. This plan should explain:
Parents and carers should be involved in drawing up any early help plan. And they should give their views about who they think the early help plan should be shared with. For example, if the assessment recommends a child has help with speech and language, the parents or carers will likely want the plan to be shared with the child’s school.
Do families have to accept the early help services offered?
No. Parents or carers can decide not to accept early help services.
Sometimes parents or carers may feel that they do not want to accept the help suggested. If a parent or carer is feeling like this it is a good idea for them to talk things through. This might involve a parent or carer:
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