Early Support is the Welsh Assembly Government funded programme to improve the delivery of services to disabled children under 5 and their families. It builds on work carried out in England over the last 5 years, where Early Support is well-established in many of the 150 local authorities.
Q. Why is there a need for Early Support in Wales ?
A. Disabled children are a diverse group with changing needs – the one thing far too many of these children and their families have in common is that they are all too often trapped from birth in a cycle of deprivation. In the past, services have failed to make proper provision for disabled children because of problems with physical access, or a lack of trained staff. It is essential that these children have the same opportunities as other children – to have the choices and opportunities that we aspire to for all our young people. And it’s vital that they get that support as early as possible – early intervention not only impacts positively in terms of promoting development, it also challenges any possibility of early decline or regression among children with disabilities. Parents have consistently reported a lack of co-ordination in services, where separate systems operating in the statutory agencies positively stand in the way of parents receiving a joined up service. Parents often become ‘ guerilla warriors’ early on and end up having to act as the main point of coordinating the services that are there to assist them. Early Support aims to ensure that services are better coordinated, with a single point of contact, working in a family and child focused way, in partnership with parents and carers.
Q. How will Early Support help in the better delivery of services?
A. Early Support has developed a range of resources and training that are aimed at bringing service providers together to determine what a child’s and family’s needs are and put the parent at the centre of the planning process. The development of these resources and the training began in England and it is currently taking place in Wales to ensure the English materials are suitably adapted to fit the Welsh context. The materials will all be ready and available by the end of 2009. The materials are not, however, the intervention and Early Support principles and approaches will be gradually introduced in Wales from the beginning of 2009 onwards, with the support of Early Support consultants across Wales.
Q. What are the Early Support practical resources?
A. There is a range of Early Support materials and training courses. Early Support materials have been developed to help families and professionals move out of a model of crisis intervention and bring an element of planning into the lives of families with young disabled children. The materials include:-
One of the main features of the Family file is the Family Service Plan, which supports joint discussion between the parent and the professional about what services the family and child needs and how the services that are available locally will respond. It offers a real chance at the very beginning of better coordination of services.
The family pack also brings together in one pack all the information the family needs about services, financial help and other basic information that families have struggled to get together in the past.
The Early Support multiagency planning and improvement tool is a resource that professionals can use to assess how well they deliver services to families and how well they work with families in planning services to support them and to plan effective implementation of Early Support principles and materials.
There are seven different Early Support training courses including:-
For more information contact: Kathy Beach, Early Support Administrator, Children in Wales, Tel: 029 2034 2434, E-mail: kathryn.beach@childreninwales.org.uk