Agenda item

The Committee received an update on the development of the early help offer for children and families in Oldham and on the connections to other areas of activity, including place-based working and linkages to a range of other work relating to prevention and early intervention in the Borough.

‘Working together to safeguard children’ (2018) is the statutory guidance for inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children which recognises that providing early help is more effective than reacting later in promoting the welfare of children. Early help is defined as “providing support as soon as a problem emerges, at any point in a child’s life, from the foundation years through to the teenage years” and which includes addressing parental issues such as poor mental health, drug and alcohol misuse and domestic abuse which impact upon the lives of children in the family.  The guidance highlights the need for local organisations and agencies to work together to identify children and families who would benefit from early help, to undertake an assessment of their need for early help, and to provide targeted early help services to address the assessed needs of a child and their family which focuses on activity to promote outcomes for the child.  The safeguarding partners needed to publish a threshold document which sets out the local criteria for accessing help and services and the Oldham document, available on the Safeguarding Partnership website, sets out four levels of early help offer that would be made according to the need.

Earlier work on ‘Oldham Family Connect’ arose from an identified need to strengthen the support offer for children and families with multiple or high level needs in order to prevent the need for social care intervention and to reduce the likelihood of needs re-escalating. The Early Help service part of the offer, established in April 2015, had resulted from the recommissioning of a range of services to deliver a better integrated offer based on an approach of multi-skilled key workers supporting a whole family. During 2020 there had been a rethink of the approach to Oldham Family Connect, considering the multi-agency early help offer to children and families at all levels of need rather than focusing on support at the intensive level. Work was therefore being undertaken to refresh the Partnership’s Early Help strategy for supporting children and families, including reviewing and developing the offer and providing clarity about how this operates across the whole range of needs.  It was intended that the refreshed strategy will be agreed by the Partnership in late 2020.

The project was no longer being described as Oldham Family Connect given the wider multi-agency offer.  As part of the wider development, it was intended to reorganise the targeted early help services within the Council, requiring a governance structure that would enable partners to agree priority outcomes for children and families and to plan how they will work together.  Other work included the recommissioning of the commissioned early help offer, inputting into other interconnected activities, and creating an integrated children’s front door into the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH).

Noting that the proposal would see a number of services working together, it was queried what assessment could be made as to whether this joint working was happening and what would be the role of elected Members given that they picked up issues as part of their casework.  It was acknowledged that elected Members did forward issues and concerns to the Service and this would continue.  The use of the Children’s Centre District Advisory Boards, or some adaptation of them, had been proposed as being bodies that might provide appropriate governance and this needed consideration against the wider roles now suggested.

The number of professionals involved in each case was queried.  It was advised that this would vary dependent on the complexity of case.  For example, in cases of lower need an agency such as a school might be expected to take a lead.  For more complex cases there would be a need for a single dedicated worker, with multi agency support, to work directly with the child or family concerned. 

Members noted the linkages to place based working and the District Advisory Boards and were advised of proposals to restructure the Early Help Team to work to particular patches.  In response to queries as to the proposal to base staff centrally and how this fitted to the place based approach, it was reported that workers would spend much of their time away from the office base working with families or providing training and would have close working relationships with others covering the same areas.  Experience through the Covid-19 pandemic period had brought about changes in thought as to how the service could operate, meaning there was less need for a physical base.

With regard to timescales, it was noted that the refresh of the Strategy was planned for completion by the end of 2020 and it was hoped to have the new structures in place by the end of the financial year.  Members considered this might be an appropriate time at which to receive an update on progress.

RESOLVED that

1.            the update on the developing approach to the multi-agency early help offer be noted;

2.            an update on the refresh of the Strategy and the development and implementation of new governance and staffing structures be submitted to the March 2021 meeting of the Committee.