Early Help & Parent Support

Hello, my name is Catherine Swindlehurst and I am the Parent Liaison and Safeguarding Officer here at White Ash Primary School. I have recently joined White Ash in October 2022 and I am looking forward in getting to know everyone. 

My role in school is to provide support, advice and information to the families within our school community. I can help you with any worries you may have about your child’s education and wellbeing and I am also here as someone to talk to if you need support yourself. I can meet you at home or in school at a time that suits you. Any advice and support that I offer will be confidential, although concerns relating to the safeguarding of children will always be dealt with in accordance with school’s Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy. I may not have all the answers, but I will be able to point you in the direction of appropriate people to help in that case.

Support for families includes: 

• Providing information and signposting to other services in your local area. 
• Liaising with external services e.g. Children Social Care.
• Attendance and support at school.
• Support during appointments and in meetings.
• Help to complete paperwork and forms e.g. housing, school letters, grant applications and benefits.
• Advice and support to promote good attendance.
• Referrals to outside agencies e.g. Continence service, Learning Disability Team and Speech and Language Therapists.
• Guidance with access to training and parent workshops in school.
• Emotional support for parents
• Lead on EHA and TAF's. 
• Give parents access to Disability events and training events.
• Parent Days out.
• Support for transitioning pupils.

I am available Monday-Thursday 8.30am-3.30pm and Friday 8.30am-3.00pm.

My email address is c.swindlehurst@whiteash.lancs.sch.uk

Mobile: 07496510389

Early Help - working with you and your family

What is early help?

Every family goes through challenging times at some point. Early help means working with you and your family so that small problems don’t become big problems. To offer a blanket of support for families to succeed.

Early help is for everybody, for families with children and young people of any age. And it’s your choice whether to have it or not.

Why would I want early help?

There are lots of reasons why people look for early help. It could be that you’re worried about your child’s health, development or behaviour, or how they’re doing at school. It may be that you’re worried about money or housing and how that is affecting your family. Maybe your child or family is affected by domestic abuse, drugs, alcohol, or crime. Perhaps your child is a carer for their SEND sibling, or maybe you’ve had a bereavement in the family that’s made life a challenge.

Where can I get early help?

If you feel you and your family might need support to solve some problems, please do not hesitate to contact me.  

What will happen when I ask for early help?

I will give you a call to either complete a home visit or you could come into school and we will talk  about the problems you’re experiencing. I  will ask what help and support you think you might need. This is called an early help assessment.

Early help assessment is nothing to be worried about. It’s just a conversation to work out how to help you determine what it is you feel you need support with and how this can be done.   You can talk about things that are going well and things that you’re proud of as well as things that you’re finding a challenge.

We will also discuss your child or children in your family to make sure they understand how they are feeling and anything they think they might want some help with. 

What happens next will be different for every family. If an Early Help assessment is carried out and actions are identified we will then call Team Around the Family (TAF) meetings. Again this is nothing to be worried about. It just ensures we have a regular meeting with all professionals involved to get the best outcome for the family.  You have control over what happens next and can say what you want.

All of this is consent based. IF CONSENT IS WITHDRAWN THEN THE PROCESS STOPS!

If you decide you’d like some help, the person you talked with will ask if they can share details of your conversation. You need to be happy with this and give your permission. This is to make sure the people who will be supporting you are able to do a good job for you and understand the journey you and your family have been on.

Sharing information

There may be times when the person you talked to has to share information. This includes:

• if they think a child is at risk of harm
• if they think an adult is at risk of harm
• if they think the information could help prevent or detect a serious crime.

Children Social care won’t get involved unless one of these things happens, or unless the circumstances in your family change and become more serious.

Remember, it’s your choice to have Early Help. If you have any questions please contact me.