New service helps children and families earlier

Buckinghamshire County Council cabinet has given its approval for a new service that helps children and families more effectively by developing one Early Help service for Buckinghamshire.

Following public consultation in 2017, the council plans to improve families most in need by shifting the focus further from reactive services to preventative support. By providing more coordinated support to children and families as soon as a problem emerges, the aim is to prevent small problems from getting out of control and help families to become more resilient to deal with problems in the future.

Cabinet agreed the new service will be created by bringing together council delivered and commissioned services that currently provide early help support across the country.

This will enable the council to support families with all of their problems at the same time, meaning families and children only have to tell their story once.

The service will bring together a range of experience and expertise from across the existing early help services, ensuring teams of family workers who will be able to support families across a wide range of issues and age groups.

The nine community team bases will be close to areas where there are more children and families in need. This will enable workers to go out into the community to meet with families in places they feel most at ease.

Seven of these will make use of the existing children’s centre buildings.

Alongside the development of this new service the council will be providing information, advice and support online for children and families through the Buckinghamshire Family Information Service.

One coordinated Early Help Service for Buckinghamshire is planned to have a service budget of £7.125 million in comparison to the budget of £10.08 million for the current services, saving the council £3.07 million over four years. Alongside this, better early help for children and families should reduce demand for more costly support from children’s services such as social care in the future.

Warren Whyte, cabinet member for children’s services, said: “This is a great opportunity to support children and families who need us the most. By going out to where they are, dealing with the whole family and all of their issues and listening to what families need rather than waiting for them to reach a crisis point, I’m confident we can make some real positive changes for families in Buckinghamshire.

“I’m particularly keen now for ideas on how we can continue to keep our Children’s Centre buildings in use going forward; whether that is to support increasing Early Years places, schools, other support and services for children, young people and families, or broader community use.”