Early help and children’s services: exploring provision and practice across English local authoritiesIntroduction

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore early help provision to children and families not reaching the Children Act (1989) child in need threshold, across all 152 English local authorities in 2017. Design/methodology/approach A freedom of information request was used, in September 2017, to obtain information regarding recorded numbers, attributes and referral reasons for Early Help cases, case categorisation, professional groups involved in this provision and models of practice. Findings Responses revealed there are no common protocols categorising referrals and identified needs of children and young people. Child behavioural issues were the most frequently occurring category followed by parenting issues and child emotional well-being. The numbers of children engaged by Early Help services varied with a range between Barnsley with 7.8% of children under 18 years old and Richmond on Thames with 0.33% and only exceeded children in need in a 7 out of 71 reporting authorities. Models of practice used were most commonly based on the assessment framework, which operates at all social work thresholds including child protection. The enquiry found a diverse workforce involved in Early Help and sets it within a context of local thresholds for dealing with large increases in referral rates to children’s services departments in recent years. Originality/value The study provides a unique insight into the nature and scope of Early Help provision across England. The relationship between existing thresholds of intervention in the child welfare system is underexplored in the social work literature.

Factors affecting the social gradient in children’s social care

“…Unfortunately, social policy over the last decade has headed in exactly the opposite direction, with a progressive shift to late intervention accompanied by large cuts to youth services, children's centres and community-based family support (Kelly et al, 2018;Action for Children, National Children's Bureau, The Children's Society and Barnados, 2020;YMCA, 2020). LAs in England have tried to compensate for these cuts by investing in targeted prevention under the umbrella of 'Early Help', which includes a range of services such as family hubs, children's centres, parenting groups, mentors, positive activities for young people and relationship support (Frost et al, 2015;Lucas and Archard, 2021). However, research suggests that Early Help has increasingly become a tertiary service for children and families with complex needs, replicating the 'screen-and-intervene' model of statutory social care with processes geared around assessment and short-term casework (Lucas and Archard, 2021).…”

“…LAs in England have tried to compensate for these cuts by investing in targeted prevention under the umbrella of 'Early Help', which includes a range of services such as family hubs, children's centres, parenting groups, mentors, positive activities for young people and relationship support (Frost et al, 2015;Lucas and Archard, 2021). However, research suggests that Early Help has increasingly become a tertiary service for children and families with complex needs, replicating the 'screen-and-intervene' model of statutory social care with processes geared around assessment and short-term casework (Lucas and Archard, 2021). A similar trend has been observed in Sure Start children's centres, which have become fewer in number and more focused on families referred by professionals (Smith et al, 2018).…”

Family Hubs and the vulnerable care ecologies of child and family welfare in austerity

“…In England, the form and ideological positioning of child and family support has been changing over the past two decades, characterised by a move towards 'child protection' and 'risk identification' rather than universal family support services (Lucas and Archard, 2021). Parton et al (1997) criticised these shifts in policy and practice from forming 'consistent, trusting, professional' relationships with parents without assuming guilt or innocence, to a system of social workers as managers of 'cases' who had to 'assess risk' and then attempt to reduce or eliminate it.…”

“…Approaches to family support have historically cycled through different forms of engagement and interventions, fluctuating between more community orientated, universalist models of family support (Pierson, 2011), and more controlling, targeted and decontextualised approaches marked by dynamics of policing 'families in trouble' (Lambert, 2019). There is some indication, too, that these shifts also coincide with economic transitions from periods of relative affluence to times of greater austerity (Lucas and Archard, 2021). In England, systems of child welfare are increasingly reported to be bureaucratic, risk-averse cultures, with diminishing resources, moving away from universalist support for families, which has 'potentially led to a crisis in the child welfare system' (Frost et al, 2015: 15).…”

The role of the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector in Early Help: Critical reflections from embedded social care research

“…Early Help is a pre-statutory threshold for services, meaning families voluntarily engage with the help and support being offered (Department for Education (DfE), 2018). The most common Early Help practice model to have emerged in England involves a single holistic family assessment and multi-agency response often called a Team Around the Child/Family (Lucas & Archard, 2021).…”