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Alfreton Nursery, Croft Infant school and Woodbridge Junior school have joined together to offer Early Help to our families.

Previously a role that was offered by the Multi Agency Team (MAT) we are now offering this support directly from school.

What can I have support for?
For example, you may be looking for extra help because you are caring for a child with additional needs, worried about a young person's behaviour or be affected by domestic abuse, need support around debt management, may have housing issues, be struggling to manage and need benefit advice. Enabling families to access further services that can provide specific, targeted support. The idea is to provide Early help intervention and support families to access services, which can help before they reach crisis.

We also offer support for families who have Social Care working with them and can offer continuing support when Social Care are no longer involved.

Who offers the support.
Laura Brown (Family Support Assistant and Teaching Assistant) and Lesley Turner (Pastoral Lead) are both based at Woodbridge Junior school daily with Laura Brown attending Croft Infant school on a Monday and Thursday afternoons, support is available everyday even if we are not at your school we will just contact you from the other.

What does support look like?
Each support package is tailored to your family’s needs. Initially we will talk to you on the phone and arrange either a home visit or Teams video call. We will then create an action plan of the support and review it regularly. It maybe that initially you just need to talk to someone about the situation.

How do I access support?
Please feel free to contact us directly by telephone at Woodbridge 01773 833138 or at Croft on 01773 832307. You can also talk to your children’s teacher a member of school staff you feel comfortable with, the office staff or via Dojo if you are a Woodbridge or Croft Family. GP’s can also signpost you to us for support and advice.


Who is support for?
Anyone who has a child that attends either one of our schools. All support is confidential and the level of engagement is controlled by the family.

If you have immediate concerns about the wellbeing of the child, then please Call Derbyshire 01629533190 selecting option one.

Woodbridge Junior School, Croft Infant School and Alfreton Nursery.

EARLY HELP OFFER:

There is a range of early help support that is provided for children, young people and their families. This support is provided via both universal and targeted services.

The majority of children and young people will have low level needs that can be supported through a range of universal services. These services include:

• Health services such as GP's, Midwifery, Health Visiting and School Nursing;
• Educational Settings; lower level support to allow children to access education.
• Housing / CAB;
• Children’s Centres.

However the changing nature of needs of the child or parent often means that the level of support required is likely to vary. This can be linked to the developmental stages of the child, factors that impact on the family (such as unemployment / bereavement / isolation / lack of support networks), challenges for parents (such as parental mental ill health / substance misuse / domestic abuse). Children’s needs are seen as a continuous process rather than a single event and practitioners should be alert to changes which might require a re-assessment of needs.

Early help should be provided to address any emerging needs and consists of co-ordinated support from universal and targeted services.

School pastoral support works with families, which require both universal and targeted support.

If a request for support is made then the Pastoral Lead will make contact with the family. These requests can either be made by the child in school for support, the family, a professional within the school network or may come via Starting Point.

Requests via Starting Point: When a referral in made to starting point regarding a child it will be triaged, if Starting Point feel the family do not need Social Care involvement and can be supported with either universal or targeted early help they will inform the school to continue with the referral, the pastoral lead will then contact the family and continue with an Early Help Assessment if appropriate.

If the referral is made within school then the Pastoral Lead make contact with the family and depending on the results of the initial contact with the family they will be supported by either universal services or progress to an Early Help Assessment.

On occasion families may have many universal services working with them and feel that they would benefit from the structure of the Early Help System to manage all of the intervention.