Agenda item

The Committee received a report of the Corporate Director for Children and Young People’s Services which presented an overview of County Durham’s Early Help Offer, which supported the dedicated session at Children’s and Young People’s Scrutiny Committee on this topic (for copy see file of minutes).

Martyn Stenton, Head of Early Help, Inclusion and Vulnerable Children presented an outline of the services offered by County Durham Early Help team. ‘Early Help’ was the term used in County Durham to describe the approach to providing support to vulnerable children, young people, and families as soon as problems started to emerge or when there was a strong likelihood that problems would emerge in the future. Children and families who had been identified by practitioners as having multiple or complex needs could receive ‘targeted early help’ where a specialist and/or multi-agency response was required but where statutory social work intervention was not needed. The presentation outlined the Early Help strategy 2024-2026 and Working Together statutory guidance which was a collaborative approach for working closely with partners to deliver universal and community based support, targeted support, and statutory services for families.

Family Hubs (FH) at 15 locations and 6 outreach sites throughout the county offered a universal front door service to families offering a one-stop shop for family support. As well as being a service access point for families and health professionals, FH offered support groups and courses for parents and carers from pregnancy to age 19 (or 25 for young people with SEN and disabilities). FH registrations between April – December 2024 totalled 9,051 individuals from 3,409 families with the highest number of registrations in areas highlighted as being in the top 30% on the deprivation index. The Early Help service Intensive Family Support Locality Teams were supporting over 1000 children with multiple and complex needs with the aim of creating a Team Around the Family (TAF) which helped families with their problems and prevented escalation to Children’s Social Care. Locality teams worked closely with Children’s Social Care professionals and a core membership of partners including CAMHS, DCC Housing, Education and Attendance Improvement Officer which facilitated a conversation collaborative that worked together as a support TAF.

The National Supporting Families Programme (previously called Troubled Families Programme) funding would continue to March 2025 through a process of ‘earned autonomy’ that awarded the full grant without the requirement to drawdown funding in incremental payments as milestones were reached.  This grant helped with future budget projections and planning which supported service delivery, helping 1,264 families achieve all outcomes between April and December2024.

The Chair noted that the Children’s and Young Peoples Overview and Scrutiny Committee had visited FHs in Hordon and Durham, in 2024 and it would be beneficial to repeat the visits again this year. 

Councillor Coult commented that the 20% increase in demand for children and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) projected over the next 5 years would have an impact on available staffing and resources. Gail Earl, Strategic Manager Early Help responded that recruitment and retention were a focus for future planning and intensive family support recruitment had not been as challenging as recruitment for some other roles. Professionals came into family intensive work from youth work and other backgrounds, many found the work rewarding and built up positive relationships with families.  Councillor Coult added that Members could support with directing families in need to FHs for support through communicating the services on offer through Parish networks and sharing the Early Help Facebook page.

Councillor Walton noted that communication with Members on services offered at FHs would be helpful as this could be shared with residents in local Parishes. Fostering links with ‘Welcome Spaces schemes’ would also be beneficial for sharing information on the wide range of services and courses on offer. She added that with such a wide range of services on offer was there any overlap in delivery or less demand for some avenues of support? The Head of Early Help, Inclusion and Vulnerable Children clarified that family outcome frameworks tracked who accessed services and followed up with a review programme to track outcomes for families. To support Members’ knowledge of the Early help, there would be the opportunity to offer a dedicated session in the new Members induction programme following the May 2025 County Council elections.

Councillor Walton referred to the positive feedback received from parents/carers and young people and asked if follow up was made with families which engaged with services and then dropped out? The Strategic Manager Early Help clarified that accessing support was voluntary and some families may at any stage decline help however, families that decline intensive family support when there were complex multiple issues would be engaged through individual teams on what tailored support they may need.

Councillor Scurfield noted the budgetary challenges faced with increased numbers of referrals and families in need of early help intensive support and asked if there was a target for the number of families that were registered to access services through FHs. The Head of Early Help, Inclusion and Vulnerable Children added that Durham has prioritised early help support to families over a number of years and the service seeks to maximise funding through Government grants.  The newly announced Children’s Services Prevention Grant will support with delivery of preventative support to work towards decreasing the number of children coming into care however the pressures on other services such as schools and health could pose a risk as there could be a gap in TAF support in the wider partnership. The Strategic Manager Early Help added that though there were not targeted number of families that should be registered with a FH this was tracked through comparing the birth rate with the number of registered families in an area. Families not registered could also still engage and work within the antenatal services promoted families to register at the time of the child’s birth. Alison Ghent, Family Hub Development Manager highlighted plans to offer Midwife appointments and Register appointment at FHs to register a baby’s birth with the aim of engaging with families form birth. Councillor Scurfield noted the future priorities highlighted within the report. The Strategic Manager Early Help discussed priorities linked to the early help strategy and added that the expected Inspection of Local Authority Children’s Services (ILACS) would include an inspection of early help services.

Councillor Lines referred to communication methods used to share services offered by Early Help and links with the Council’s communication team. The Strategic Manager Early Help added that a Communications Officer was funded by the service and supported campaigns such as the current promotion displayed on regional bus stops detailing new programmes which included the breastfeeding programme. There was on-going work to look at promotional videos tailored to the partner for example education or health settings that included the parent and child’s voice as they were more impactful. Information screens within council buildings would be used to show captioned version of promotional videos as no sound could be used in public spaces. Plans for further promotion work with television channel ITVx was also on-going.

Resolved: That the contents of the report and presentation be noted by the Committee.