Family Help Front Door Team
You can access family help services for children and families through the Family Help Front Door Team.
If your concern is about imminent risk to a child then Cheshire East Consultation Service ChECS will make an assessment based on the information you and other professionals give them. You may have a further assessment by Children's Social Care or where your concern is not imminent risk to a child you may be referred to the Family Help Front Door Team for family help support including either an Extra Help assessment or an Early Targeted Family Help assessment which will look at the support you and your child need.
The Family Help Front Door Team will gather and consider information about your child and your family. A Family Help Front Door advisor will contact you to gain consent and to gather more information about the support you and your family may require. The Family Help Front Door advisor will also gather information from previous case records and by making contact with other agencies who may be or have been involved. We do this to make informed decisions about the services that can help.
Once the information is gathered the Family Help Front Door advisor will discuss appropriate family help support with you to agree on a clear outcome of support. For example a referral for a Family Support Worker who will be able to support you and your child with the identified issues helping you have more positive outcomes or to receive support from an agency already working with you and your family or someone who knows your family best.
You can also access the Live Well site to look at community services available which you can contact for support.
Family Help Assessments (previously EHA) - support is available
Across the Borough we also have 2 Partnership Family Help Officers who are family help practitioners this role to provide support, advice and guidance on Targeted Family Help Assessments, Plans and Extra Help cases where the lead professional is from a partner agency.
Support offered includes:
- Extra Help – what is it and when is an assessment needed including the role of the Lead person.
- Having the conversation with parents and carers to start an Extra Help Assessment to support positive engagement
- How to Capture the Child's Voice and why this is important, including tools and resources
- Using the Signs of Wellbeing framework with families
- Gathering initial assessment information – including tools and resources to complete the mapping
- What happens next – Initial and review meetings.
- Understanding processes to support Step down cases from Children's Social Care.
We know there have been a lot of changes recently having introduced: the new assessment/planning tool, and some of you are also learning to use the electronic system… so help is at hand…
As well as the support offered via the Family Help Front Door Team we now have 2 Partnership Family Help Officers, who are available to offer you support and guidance through the process. They are based across the area and will have a key role to play in supporting you to help families through early intervention; ensuring families get the right support at the right time. We know families want to be supported within their communities and by people who know them best. As a result of the support available we anticipate we will be able to focus on improving outcomes for children and families.
Working in Locality areas the Partnership Family Help Officers will be able to get to know you and your colleagues and have a good local knowledge of services that may be useful to you. They will be making contact with those of you already taking the lead role in an Extra Help Assessments /plan, but feel free to request support before that if you feel you need some extra advice.
Your Partnership Family Help Officers are:
Matthew Evanson and Karen Kirton
They can be contacted via partnershipfamilyhelp@cheshireeast.gov.uk
Page last reviewed: 08 September 2023