Early Help Service: Redesign Proposals

Please watch our Early Help Service: Redesign consultation video

Overview

The Early Help service is an important part of our work to support children and families in West Sussex.

Early Help staff work with children and families who are facing any number of challenging circumstances and help ensure every child has a safe environment in which to thrive.

Traditionally, this service has been delivered at centres across West Sussex.

However, during the pandemic, these centres have been mostly closed and our staff have found new ways of reaching out to families who need our help.

At the same time, demands on the services have been increasing so there is a real need to look more closely at our ways of working to ensure we can maintain our commitment to providing Early Help support as effectively as possible.

Proposals

West Sussex County Council is proposing a series of changes to the Early Help service including to:

• Maintain Early Help services from 11 of our 43 Children & Family centre buildings; at least one centre in each district and borough of West Sussex

• Increase the support and focused response to vulnerable children.

• Ensure families have access to the most appropriate support, including closer working with schools.

• Protect a full-time drop-in service for young people in each district and borough by merging our 12 Find It Out (youth) Centres with our 11 Children and Family Centres.

• Stop providing group work. For example, stay and play groups where parents can engage in play sessions with their children, thus focusing our attention where we know we make the biggest different, going out to support the most vulnerable children and families in the communities.

The proposed changes will deliver savings already identified in the council's financial plan.

We are already in discussions with health and other organisations who operate what are called ‘universal services’ from our Children & Family Centres, such as maternity and parent groups, to consider the impact of the proposals. In some cases, partner organisations might be able to continue to work from the buildings. We will be reviewing partner feedback and any ideas for alternative arrangements of these services as part of our proposed consultation.

Progress

A report was discussed by the Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Committee on 7 January 2021 and you can read the minutes and recommendations.

The Early Help redesign proposal and recommendations were discussed at a Cabinet meeting on 23 February 2021.

It was agreed that a thorough 10-week public consultation should be conducted to look further into the impact and possibilities of these proposals.

Changes to the Early Help redesign proposals were taken to the scrutiny committee meeting on 20 July.

1,948 people (including 301 children and young people) responded to the 10-week public consultation which ran from 8 March to 17 May 2021 and included five online consultation events.

A number of changes are being put forward as part of the proposal. A summary of these changes is:

• To increase the number of retained centres from 11 to 12
• To increase the ‘find it out’ offer to young people allowing for daily appointments at a location to suit the young person
• Early Help will continue to offer some specific group work when there is an identified need
• Dedicated staffing in Children and Family Centres will be responsible for publicising services so people know how to get the support they need.

The scrutiny committee reviewed the updated proposals on 20 July 2021. On Tuesday 27 July 2021 Cabinet Members met to vote on whether to approve the Early Help service offer.

Full papers can be viewed here.

Decision

West Sussex County Council’s Cabinet have approved the redesign of the Early Help service.

The proposals approved by Cabinet will:

• Maintain Early Help services from 12 of the 43 Children & Family Centre buildings; maintaining at least one centre in each district and borough of West Sussex
• Increase the support and focused response to vulnerable children
• Ensure families have access to the most appropriate support, including closer working with schools
• Protect a full-time drop-in service for young people in each district and borough by merging our 12 Find It Out (youth) centres with our 12 remaining Children and Family Centre’s
• Increase the ‘Find it Out’ offer to young people allowing for daily appointments at a location to suit the young person
• Ensure Early Help continues to offer some specific group work when there is an identified need
• Support community groups to deliver in the remaining centres
• Ensure dedicated staffing in Children and Family Centres to publicise services so people know how to get the support they need

A detailed communication and engagement plan will now be produced so the residents of West Sussex and our partners know how to access our new service offer and get the support they need.

A consultation with Early Help staff affected by the changes is scheduled to take place from September 2021. The Early Help service redesign is expected to be fully implemented in December 2021.

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