3.4 Family Help

1. Introduction

Family Help aims to improve children’s outcomes by understanding and responding to the needs and circumstances of families as early as possible. It will take place in the heart of communities, bringing together local services under a combined, multidisciplinary practice approach and service offer. It will be underpinned by:

• wrapping intensive, skilled and well evidenced support around the family at the earliest opportunity – using the best matched lead practitioner from a range of disciplines;
• ensuring consistency of relationships between children, families and their lead practitioner;
• adopting one plan that will stay with families but adapt as needs change.

All families can face challenges that make parenting difficult. Often families are able to overcome challenges themselves or with the help of relatives, friends, and services, such as schools, youth services, health visiting and mental health services as well as support available through Best Start Family Hubs. However, sometimes families will have more significant needs that require more intensive help and support.

Whatever their circumstances, children and families should not be left waiting to access help and support when issues arise. The system of help, support and protection should respond flexibly and wrap support around families at the point of need. These are the principles that underpin Family Help. Family Help aims to improve outcomes for children by understanding and responding to their needs, and to the circumstances of their family, as early as possible. It takes place at the heart of communities, bringing together local services under a combined, multi-disciplinary practice approach and service offer.

This chapter outlines how agencies, organisations and individuals work together to provide help, support, and protection in universal services and community- based early help, through Family Help (including targeted early help and statutory services under section 17 of the Children Act 1989), and through section 47 of the Children Act 1989 (child protection enquires and processes).

Family Help brings together targeted early help and child in need support and services into a seamless offer. While families may move between targeted early help and child in need within Family Help, this should feel seamless with minimal disruption – supported by greater consistency in lead practitioner, and the use of single assessments and plans, helping families retain relationships and trust in the system.

Working Together to Safeguard Children clarifies that Family Help covers targeted early help and child in need, and that as needs change, support and services should respond effectively. This is why multi-agency child protection teams will come alongside the Family Help system and will be responsible for the child protection process where there is actual or likely significant harm, alongside the ongoing support from the Family Help Lead Practitioner.

By closely aligning targeted early help and child in need support and services, Family Help creates a seamless system of help and support for children and families focused on building consistent relationships with lead practitioners, simple and effective assessment and planning, and clear interventions that support improved outcomes.

Targeted early help services delivered through Family Help, are coordinated by a local authority and/or their partners to address specific concerns within a family. Examples of these include parenting support, mental health support, domestic abuse services, youth services, youth offending teams and housing and employment services. Targeted early help should be provided for children and families who have multiple and/or complex needs, or whose circumstances might make them more vulnerable. This could include where a child is living with wider family members under a kinship arrangement. Targeted early help might also be appropriate to support a pregnant person to provide safe and effective care for their unborn child.

Family Help is a voluntary approach, requiring the family’s consent to receive support and services.

The Families First Partnership programme guide provides a toolkit to assist safeguarding partners to set up effective Family Help services. Effective provision relies upon local organisations and agencies working together to:

• identify children and families who would benefit from Family Help, with clear referral routes between universal and community-based early help and targeted support. This may include pre-birth support where risk factors are known;
• undertake a Family Help assessment which considers the needs of all members of the family;
• ensure good ongoing communication, for example, through regular meetings between multi-disciplinary practitioners who are working with the family;
• co-ordinate and/or provide support as part of a Family Help plan to improve outcomes. This Family Help plan will be designed together with the child and family and updated as the child and family needs change, including if other support or intervention under section 17 or section 47 of the Children Act 1989 is needed;
• engage effectively with families and their family network, making use of family group decision-making, such as family group conferences, to help meet the needs of the child;
• manage transitions between non-statutory and statutory (delivered under section 17 of the Children Act 1989) Family Help, maintaining consistent practitioner relationships, and building on the Family Help plan.

Lead practitioners should co-ordinate support and services, ensure the assessment and the Family Help plan responds to identified needs, and support the family to co-produce the plan. Practitioners should consider whether to include the family network. Where appropriate, local authorities should engage families, including children, to have a say in who their lead practitioner is, and have a process in place to collate feedback on their relationship.

The lead practitioner role could be held by a range of people, including social workers and other local authority employed staff (including those who work in a Best Start Family Hub), as well as those based in partner organisations. Decisions about who holds the role of lead practitioner should consider capacity and capability. Practitioners who begin working with families at the targeted early help stage can continue to lead work with families if the child is later assessed to be a child in need as defined by Section 17 of the Children Act 1989. The Families First Partnership programme guide provides operational details on lead practitioner roles and responsibilities, and expectations for coordinating a multi-disciplinary team around the family.

2. Identifying Children and Families who Would Benefit from Help

2.1 Overview

Family Help is for children, young people and families whose needs are multiple and/or complex, including those currently eligible for targeted early help or receiving support and services as a child in need, and those subject to child protection enquiries and plans.

‘Multiple and/or complex’ means where a child is unlikely to achieve or maintain a reasonable standard of health or development without services. This will be where family’s needs are above the level of universal and community based early help, such as that provided by a Family Hub or in community settings, and they are less able to access and navigate support themselves. In Family Help, these families will be officially recorded in a local area’s children’s social care case management system and assigned a Family Help Lead Practitioner. Local authorities should also record Family Help cases where the Family Help Lead Practitioner is not employed by the local authority, ensuring all families receiving Family Help are consistently captured within the case management system.

Where appropriate, it may include support for parents and children interacting with the care system, both as part of services provided while in care, but also as part of planning for and supporting reunification. Families who access Family Help will provide consent to receive support and services – but it may still be necessary for local areas to share information with relevant agencies if consent for services is not provided.

Practitioners should be alert to the potential need for Family Help for a child who:

• is unborn;
• is disabled;
• has special educational needs (whether or not they have a statutory education, health and care (EHC) plan);
• is a young carer;
• is bereaved;
• is showing signs of being drawn into anti-social or criminal behaviour, including being affected by gangs and county lines and organised crime groups and / or serious violence, including knife crime;
• is frequently missing / goes missing from care or from home;
• is at risk of modern slavery, trafficking, sexual and / or criminal exploitation;
• is at risk of being radicalised;
• is viewing problematic and / or inappropriate online content (for example, linked to violence), or developing inappropriate relationships online;
• is in a family circumstance presenting challenges for the child, such as drug and alcohol misuse, adult mental health issues and domestic abuse;
• is misusing drugs or alcohol themselves;
• is suffering from mental ill health;
• has returned home to their family from care;
• is a privately fostered child;
• has a parent or carer in custody;
• is missing education, or persistently absent from school, or not in receipt of full time education;
• has experienced multiple suspensions and is at risk of, or has been permanently excluded.

Practitioners should also consider the needs of parents who no longer have children in their care. Offering support to parents who have had a child removed can help prevent future removals and support effective and stable reunification.

Practitioners should also consider the impact of domestic abuse on a child. Section 20 of the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 introduced a new provision into Part 3 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 under Section 49A. The information sharing scheme known as ‘Operation Encompass’ placed a statutory duty on police forces across England and Wales to notify a child’s educational setting, and, where relevant, local authorities, if they have reasonable grounds to believe a child may be a victim of domestic abuse. This includes all children connected to a household where police have attended a domestic abuse incident; children who are physically present at the incident, children not physically present during the incident and situations where a child might reside in another household temporarily or permanently. The duty supports educational settings to provide timely, informed support to children affected by domestic abuse and to ensure the school has up to date information about the child’s circumstances.  Further guidance for police forces can be found in Duty on police forces in England and Wales to notify education establishments of domestic abuse incidents: Operation Encompass.

Local organisations and agencies should have in place effective ways to identify emerging problems and potential unmet needs of individual children and families. Local authorities should work with organisations and agencies to develop joined-up community-based early help, which can be delivered through a Best Start Family Hub, and Family Help services, based on a clear understanding of local needs. Local authorities should use the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) to inform the offer.

Multi-agency and multi-disciplinary training will be important in supporting this collective understanding of the demographics and needs of the local community, the local practice framework, and the services available to support children of all ages. All practitioners working with children and families, including those in universal services and those providing services to adults with children, need to understand their role in identifying emerging problems. They need appropriate training so that they:

• know when to share information with other practitioners and what action to take to support early identification and assessment;
• are aware of and able to identify where a pregnant person might need help or support to provide safe and suitable care for their unborn child;
• are able to identify and recognise all forms of abuse, neglect, and exploitation;
• have an understanding of domestic and sexual abuse, including controlling and coercive behaviour, teenage relationship abuse, ‘honour’, faith- or belief-based abuse,  as well as parental conflict that is frequent, intense, and unresolved;
• understand the complexity of kinship families and are aware that they may need to support both parents and kinship carers at the same time;
• have an understanding of threats, including online harm, grooming, sexual exploitation, criminal exploitation, radicalisation, and the overlap that can occur between online harm and harm experienced in person;
• are aware of new and emerging technologies (such as artificial intelligence) and the role that online platforms, including gaming and social media platforms, can play in grooming children and facilitating and/or causing harm;
• are aware that a child and their family may be experiencing multiple needs at the same time;
• recognise how trauma, racism, discrimination, and past experiences with services affect relationships and adapt practice accordingly, respecting the importance of different cultural models of parenting and family life.

The support and services that families receive will look different depending on individual circumstances. The Families First Programme Guide provides examples of how different children and their families may interact with Family Help.

2.2 Disabled children and their families

The type of support that disabled children and their families may need is potentially different from other families supported through Family Help, and their support offer should reflect this. They may require support throughout their childhood and across children’s social care, education and health, often needing input from practitioners with specialist SEND expertise. Disabled children and their families can also face additional barriers to accessing help, such as multiple assessment pathways or practical challenges, which makes coordinated and streamlined support especially important. Practitioners must be alert to when disability is the primary need and take care to respond in a way that avoids stigmatising parents and carers while still ensuring children are safeguarded if appropriate.

2.3 Adoptive families

Adoptive families are eligible to access Family Help support. Some adopted children can face a range of emotional, social, and developmental challenges because of their early life experiences – in particular, the circumstances that may have led to them being adopted. Some may struggle with forming secure attachments particularly if they have lived through neglect or abuse. Some may experience challenges because of the impact of Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder or neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism. These can influence behaviour, learning, and relationships at home and in school. It is important that adoptive families are given prompt support to help them address challenges particularly when there is a risk that these could escalate to family breakdown. It is important that front door and Family Help teams work with adoption teams as these will know the family and be able to help determine what support the family need.

2.4 Support for birth parents

Sometimes, children will need to be removed into local authority care. Often, the birth parents will fall through the cracks in services and the chance to lead fulfilling lives in these circumstances is significantly reduced. Birth parents’ vulnerability to poverty, homelessness, social exclusion as well as further involvement from social services is increased. Whilst children’s best interests should be the primary consideration in all aspects of children’s social care, there should be understanding that the role of birth parents is also considered across all children’s social care policy and practice, with their responsibilities and needs recognised. Families First Partnership Programme funding can be used to develop services specific to birth parents. Through the support of appropriate professionals in Family Help, specialist support can be provided to birth parents who are at risk of having children removed. This is particularly relevant to teenage parents, who research has shown are at increased risk of re-current care proceedings.  When a birth parent can stabilise, address the issues that led to the removal, and build firm foundations for the future, the risk of having further children removed into care is significantly reduced. Similarly, where there could be a consideration of reunification in the future, a holistic approach that recognises the needs and responsibilities of everyone in the family, including birth parents, is necessary. Family group decision making can also be seen as one of the pathways for reunification, with this arrangement potentially supported through a family network support package. It is important to view the support to birth parents in the context of whole family working, making sure support is available for adults as well as the children within the family. Family Help will have a crucial role in prevention, to ensure challenges and barriers parents face are not further escalated and focus on what matters most, prioritise their goals and create positive change to their lives.

2.5 Children affected by parental imprisonment

The needs of children and families impacted by the justice system may be hidden, differ to other family members, and may change over time, particularly if a parent is repeatedly imprisoned. Parental imprisonment is an adverse childhood experience (ACE) and can significantly affect a child’s emotional wellbeing and educational outcomes, even when there is no immediate safeguarding risk. A child-centred, proactive, holistic, trauma-informed and non-judgemental response from local authorities is essential.   Local authorities should consider how they can facilitate co-ordinated and consistent support across all relevant children and family pathways, including Best Start Family Hubs, Family Help, and Young Futures. Family Help teams should help families navigate challenges linked to parental imprisonment by:

• recording families’ contact with the justice system and identifying their needs and support preferences, including maintaining relationships with imprisoned parent(s) as appropriate (particularly at arrest, entry to custody and release);
• ensuring staff receive training on the impact of parental imprisonment;
• creating an inclusive environment which challenges stigma and discrimination;
• signposting families to appropriate and accessible support;
• coordinating involvement of relevant partners, including criminal justice (prisons, probation), education, youth and voluntary services, with appropriate representation on multi-agency boards e.g. Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hubs (MASH) and Multi-Agency Child Protection Teams (MACPT);
• proactively sharing data with relevant criminal justice partners to enable recognition of children affected by parental imprisonment.

3. Family Help Assessments and Plans

3.1 Family Help Assessments

Where a child and family would benefit from targeted support because of multiple and/or complex needs, there should be a multi-disciplinary Family Help assessment.

There should be one assessment and plan that covers all of Family Help (targeted early help and children in need), which stay and evolve with families, and can be accessed by all the practitioners and agencies working with them. They should be developed in line with Working Together, which sets out principles for high-quality assessments and plans – including the importance of seeking consent. If a child on a Family Help plan requires a multi-agency child protection response, the plan should also incorporate or align with child protection processes, strategy discussions, section 47 enquiries, child protection conferences and the creation, review and discharge of child protection plans (where appropriate). The principle of a single plan should continue to apply.

While circumstances will change and new information will need to be captured, this should be added to existing assessments and plans, rather than starting again. Assessment is a dynamic process. This aligns with the ambition that families will have consistent lead practitioners, and the system will wrap around them.

Safeguarding partners should have a single Family Help assessment, which can be adapted depending on the child’s needs. This assessment should:

• be undertaken with the agreement of the child and their parents or carers, involving the child and family as well as all the practitioners who are working with them;
• include pre-birth assessment where needed;
• take account of the child’s wishes and feelings wherever possible which could include providing advocacy support where this is needed to enable a child to share their views, for example, if the child has communication difficulties due to a disability;
• take account of the child’s age, family circumstances and extra-familial contexts and whether these factors are contributing to or preventing good outcomes;
• take account of the needs of all members of the family as individuals and consider how their needs impact on one another which includes considering needs relating to education, early years development, mental health and physical health, substance misuse, financial stability, housing, family relationships, domestic abuse and crime. Practitioners should be aware of situations where there has been a breakdown in relationship between the child and their family and engaging the whole family may not be appropriate;
• cover both presenting needs and any underlying issues with the understanding that a family’s needs can change overtime, for example, when a child moves up to secondary school;
• be based on facts, and explore and build on strengths;
• be clear about the action to be taken and services to be provided;
• identify what help the child and family require to prevent needs escalating;
• provide the basis for any future assessments if they are needed, for example, under sections 17 and 47 of the Children Act 1989;
• be tailored to the level of need identified within a family, including adapting appropriately for children with SEND and disabled children and their families, taking into account previous interventions and wider contextual factors including for example where a parent is imprisoned;
• consider the needs of the whole-family and ensure child, young person and family voice is captured – whilst being clear the needs of the child are paramount;
• coordinate with other assessments that are ongoing (such as an Education, Health and Care assessment, a Prevention and Diversion Assessment, or a section 47 enquiry), or if previously completed (e.g. in early help), practitioners should use assessments to build a complete picture of the child and their family; and
• be led by the practitioner most suited to building a picture of the family’s needs. It is for local partnerships to determine appropriate oversight and sign off arrangements.

Practitioners should have consideration for specific needs, including, but not exclusive to, family members who may have learning difficulties / disabilities, are imprisoned or those whose first language is not English, parents, carers and children who may be at risk from hidden harms such as coercive and controlling behaviour, child sexual abuse and ‘honour’ or faith- or belief-based abuse, are care experienced, young parents, birth parents who have had children removed from their care, fathers or male carers, and parents who identify as LGBTQIA. This should also include where children may not view themselves as victims of abuse, such as teenage relationship abuse and child sexual exploitation.

If a family does not consent to a Family Help assessment, practitioners should seek to understand why this is the case, so that they can provide reassurance to the family about their concerns. They should ensure the family has understood the consensual nature of support, and range of services available to meet their needs. The practitioner should consider how the needs of the child could otherwise be met, for example, through provision by universal services that the family already engages with. Practitioners should still inform individuals that their data will be recorded and shared, and the purpose of this explained to them. If a family has chosen not to engage with support in the past, this should not act as a barrier to them accessing support in the future. If there are concerns that the child has suffered significant harm or is likely to do so, a referral should be made immediately to local authority children’s social care.  The lead practitioner for section 47 enquiries should be a social worker.

3.2 Family Help plans

Family Help plans should:

• provide clear, measurable outcomes for the child or young person and set expectations for families, with reviewable actions to track progress;
• specify the agencies and practitioners involved, the services available, and how success will be measured. Regular reviews should assess whether progress has been made to meet the child or young person’s needs;
• where applicable, incorporate or align with child protection conferences, plans and outcomes, which should also adhere to the expectations above; and
• consider how family networks can be best supported to improve the child’s outcomes, including through financial support as part of family network support packages.

Local safeguarding partners can determine their process and timelines for reviewing plans. There should be mechanisms to review the effectiveness and impact of the plan.

4. Provision of Effective Services to Help Families

Local areas should have a comprehensive range of effective services. They should reflect any local assessment of need, including the JSNA and the latest evidence of the effectiveness of Family Support programmes.

See also:

Evidence Driven Changemaking (What Works Centre for Children and Families)

Foundations Guidebook (What Works Centre for Children and Families)

Good practice should also ensure effective join up between targeted family support  and universal services to ensure families can seamlessly transition from universal or other community-based services to more specialist support should a specific need be identified. There should be an explicit link to the local area’s offer of short breaks for disabled children, as well as suitably adjusted services to support parents. Evidence should be collated to show their impact, including on those with a particular protected characteristic.

Family Help services typically include family and parenting programmes, assistance with school attendance, assistance with health issues including mental health, enabling financial stability, supporting secure housing, responses to emerging concerns in extra-familial contexts, responding to a parent, sibling or other family member in custody, and help for emerging problems relating to domestic abuse including economic abuse, coercive and controlling behaviour, ‘honour’ and faith- or belief-based abuse, teenage relationship abuse, drug or alcohol misuse. Local approaches to delivering these services will vary but could include using a Best Start family hub model.

Family Help services may also focus on improving family functioning and building the family’s own capability to establish positive routines and solve problems. This should be done within a structured, evidence-based practice framework, which is shared across the partnership and involves regular review to ensure that real progress is being made. Where family networks are supporting the child and parents, it might be appropriate to use family group decision-making to support work with the family. Some of these services may be delivered directly to parents but should always be evaluated to demonstrate the impact they are having on the outcomes for the child.

5. Family Help Lead Practitioner

5.1 Overview

Family Help should be led by Family Help Lead Practitioners (FHLPs) who will be a range of practitioners from different disciplines with the right knowledge and skills to support families who need help. Some will be social work qualified, and others will have alternative appropriate skills or qualifications. FHLPs will be part of multi-disciplinary Family Help teams and may or may not be employed directly by the local authority. Decisions about who holds the role of lead practitioner should consider capacity and capability. In line with the National Framework for Children’s Social Care, FHLPs will work with families with professional curiosity and empathy and be highly effective at offering help to the family, in order to improve outcomes for children. FHLPs are responsible for providing direct help and will coordinate support through the ‘team around the family’ and from other services.

The FHLP will remain the main point of contact for the family for as long as support is needed. They will implement a whole family plan which responds to needs identified through the single assessment. FHLPs will have the knowledge and skills to use relevant evidence-based interventions and to identify any other relevant practitioners and agencies required to meet a family’s needs and form the team around the family (TAF). The TAF will be flexible and responsive to meet the needs and experiences of the child and family at different stages.

The FHLP will be skilled in family work and confident in working with families where there is complex and changing needs. FHLP should be able to identify where there are safeguarding concerns that do not reach the threshold of significant harm and work with the TAF and the Family Help team manager to plan for safety and improve the situation. The FHLP will be alert to all forms of significant harm, both inside and outside the home and online. Where practitioners are concerned that a child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm, FHLPs will engage multi-agency child protection teams (MACPTs) and Lead Child Protection Practitioners (LCPPs) for consultation. The Multi-Agency Child Protection Team will lead all child protection decision making, drawing on the FHLP’s experience and knowledge of the family, whilst the FHLP retains the lead relationship with and responsibility for supporting the child and family.

5.2 Identifying the right Family Help Lead Practitioner

The local protocol for assessments and support should include clear processes to identify the most suitable Family Help Lead Practitioner to support families across the continuum of need and consider how a range of practitioners from across the partnership will be appointed to the role. Local protocols should also set out who can act as FHLPs from across the safeguarding partnership, including children and families receiving support under section 17 Children Act 1989.

Allocation decisions should be made in line with practitioner knowledge, skills, experience and capacity, and reflect the needs of children and families including where these are complex or where there are concerns about significant harm. FHLPs should always be qualified social workers when it is agreed that a child protection plan is needed. Where a child comes to the attention of Family Help because of concerns about actual or likely significant harm but is not previously known, the FHLP should be a social worker.

Where appropriate, safeguarding partners should engage families, including children and young people, to have a say in who their FHLP is, taking into account their views, wishes and feelings. Where a change in FHLP is needed, safeguarding partners should ensure that transitions are managed smoothly and consideration should be given to whether the previous FHLP could continue to work with the family as part of the TAF.

5.3 Supervision and oversight

All FHLPs should receive high-quality supervision in line with the statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children and the National Framework for Children’s Social Care. Supervision should be regular, consistent and reflective to support practitioners in their practice, development and wellbeing.

Safeguarding partners should determine management structures and supervision arrangements to support effective oversight and decision making in Family Help. These should include arrangements for the supervision and oversight of children who are receiving support through TEH or as a child in need. Local protocols should set out the specific role of local authority employed social work qualified practice supervisors and managers in the oversight of children receiving support and services under section 17 (child in need).

These procedures should be in place for the supervision and oversight of all FHLPs, including those not employed by the local authority, to ensure effective decision-making and so practitioners continue to receive appropriate supervision and support for continuing professional development including, where appropriate, within their existing line management arrangements and to maintain professional registration.

5.4 Training and induction

Safeguarding partners should outline training and induction requirements for all FHLPs in their multi-agency workforce development plans. Training and induction programmes should reflect the knowledge, skills and experience needed for FHLPs to help, support and protect children and families across the continuum of need and from different types of harm. Programmes should be responsive to the needs of local communities, reflecting the information set out in local area needs assessments, and should be relevant and available to a multi-disciplinary and multi-agency workforce.

5.5 Knowledge and skills

Safeguarding partners should set out the knowledge, skills and experience required for FHLPs in their local protocol documents and should meet the requirements set out in Working Together to Safeguard Children and the National Framework for Children’s Social Care. All FHLPs should have the knowledge and skills that will enable them to:

• build strong and trusting relationships with children, young people and families;
• implement a whole family plan in response to the single assessment that meets everyone’s needs, working in a strengths-based, anti-discriminatory way, which includes child and family voices in decision-making where possible;
• be helpful to a family by deploying evidence-based interventions and practice (such as in the Practice Guides  and Parenting Interventions)  when working directly with a family, avoiding the need to refer on to others;
• identify and respond to wider needs of children and their families, drawing on practitioners from other disciplines in the Family Help teams when necessary;
• be aware of local services and community resources to support children and families and how to navigate and access these;
• consider offering family group decision making and using family network support plans to empower family networks;
• review plans regularly and be alert to any change in need including all forms of significant harm, and understand how to escalate concerns, including sharing information and working collaboratively with social workers, Multi-Agency Child Protection Teams and Lead Child Protection Practitioners; and
• provide clear written reports and case recording on relevant case management systems.

6. Multi-disciplinary Family Help Teams

Community-based, multi-disciplinary teams (MDTs) should wrap help and support around children and their families. This should take a whole family approach – considering not only the presenting needs of the child or young person, but also the needs of the family and how those impact children and young people. MDTs should also be alert to safeguarding concerns that may come from outside of the home and consider the context in which harm or risk may occur. Implementation of MDTs should be considered alongside developing plans for neighbourhood health to ensure there is not a duplication of teams providing care and support to children and families.

MDTs should be intentionally designed to reflect the breadth of need that families experience. This means drawing on a wide range of professional disciplines, not solely social workers and family support workers. Local areas are encouraged to use population needs assessments to determine which practitioners are most appropriate, ensuring teams are configured to respond effectively to the issues affecting children and families.

Family Help MDTs should also work in ways that are accessible, low‑stigma and proactive. Local areas are encouraged to reduce barriers to engagement by offering support in familiar community settings, at convenient times of the working week, making it easier for families to receive help earlier and embedding approaches where practitioners reach out to families rather than relying on families to come forward when difficulties escalate. This will be particularly important for families who live in rural or isolated communities, who may otherwise have difficulty accessing services. The size and location of MDTs will depend on local circumstances and local areas are encouraged to consider established community facilities, such as Best Start Family Hubs, to support co-location.

The size and location of teams will depend on local circumstances. Local areas are encouraged to consider using Best Start Family Hubs to base these teams to support co-location.

Multidisciplinary practitioners in the team could perform a number of functions – for example provide direct support to families; triage or provide advice at the front door; provide consultative support to FHLPs as part of TAF or a link back to their home organisation to help facilitate appropriate support.

7. Front Door Arrangements

Local partnerships should consider how their front door arrangements will be integrated into the Family Help offer and move to a multi-agency model, supporting engagement and ensuring the right decisions are made in a timely manner. Local partnerships should also consider how children and families first engage with services and how to make this accessible and de-stigmatising. Consideration should be given to who the child views as their family network and that they are engaged with appropriately.

As much as is practical, local partnerships should embed a relationship-based approach to practice at the front door, where families and practitioners can have a conversation about the help they need.

Partnerships should implement digital solutions such as a service directory, social media and also roles such as community connectors and service access points which provide accessible opportunities for families to understand and access support.