Hillingdon Early Help Services

The Early Help Support team provides a range of services based in the home setting that work in partnership with parent/carers of children and young people with special educational needs and or disabilities and other services involved with the family.

The core objective is to support families to build strength and resilience through early intervention and flexible levels of service to a point where families feel empowered and confident and need less intensive support.

Mrs N Gill and Miss J Middleton are Early Help Champions for HPS, liaising with the Hillingdon Early Intervention Team (EIT) when external agency involvement is needed, but the threshold would not be met for children’s services involvement. If an Early Help Assessment (EHA) is needed, the assessment is completed with you to identify what assistance you and your family need and what to do next. Once an assessment is completed, the person completing the assessment may be able to help you themselves or may refer you to another service. In some cases, it may be more appropriate for a Team Around the Family meeting to be arranged

The Early Help services aim to increase the chances that disabled children, young people and their families are able to live 'ordinary' lives. The Early Support Team is part of the Early Intervention and Prevention SEND, Early Support service and provides an Early Support key working service, Portage service and Outreach service.

Early Help Key working service

The Early Support key working service is for families who have a child or children/young people with complex additional needs and or disabilities in the early years 0-5 and children/young people with SEND 5-25 years of age.

Early Support Key working is a person-centred approach placing the child, young person and family at the centre of service provision. Key workers work in partnership to enable active participation of children, young people and parents, leading to improved outcomes.

Flexible levels of key working are agreed with families on home visits and may include:

• Emotional and practical support – single point of contact
• Coordination – using a Family file and supporting a “tell us once” approach.
• Planning and assessment – using the Team Around the Child meeting process
• Information and specialist support - local information, national resources and sign-posting to services and organisations.

For more information speak to Mrs N Gill and Miss J Middleton.  You can also contact them as below: Early Support key working service, earlysupportteam@hillingdon.gov.uk, telephone - 01895 277183.

Early Help Portage service

Portage is a home-visiting educational service for pre-school children with SEND and their families and is registered with the National Portage Association.  The Portage service is for families with pre-school children 0-5 years with additional learning needs and a delay in two or more areas of development resulting in Special Educational Needs and or Disability (SEND).

Portage aims to:

• Work together with families, to develop a programme through a series of regular home visits (usually fortnightly)
• Celebrate the child's skills and achievements, valuing what they can do and looking forward to what they may do next
• Agree the next steps within their learning, identifying outcomes which reflect their strengths and interests, family priorities and multi-therapy targets, for example, from the child's physiotherapist or speech and language therapist.
• Respect parent/carer expertise regarding their child and share together ideas and strategies to continue the learning opportunities within daily family routines
• Review together the child's progress at regular intervals (usually 4 to 6 monthly) valuing their unique and individual achievements and write reports which can be shared with other professionals involved.

For more information speak to Mrs N Gill and Miss J Middleton. You can also contact them as below: Early Support team Portage service, earlysupportteam@hillingdon.gov.uk, telephone - 01895 277183.

Early Help Outreach service

The Outreach service provides home-based support for families with children/young people with SEND 5 -18 years.  This can include development and implementation of programmes of support, working in with parents/carers and partner agencies such as schools and health services.

The Outreach Worker provides support to the parents/carers of children and young people with special educational needs and or disabilities to enable them to develop their own skills, to learn and use strategies, where there is a delay in basic skills development such as; eating, sleeping, self-help/toileting etc, including developmental behavioural and communication difficulties.

Outreach Workers can also be involved when a child’s behaviour is well understood in a school/community setting and the family are requesting support to put the same strategies in place at home. The Outreach worker works alongside all other professionals involved with the child/young person to ensure a consistent approach. For families where sleep issues are of concern a sleep programme may be implemented to support the family in addressing and resolving these difficulties.

For more information speak to Mrs N Gill and Miss J Middleton.  You can also contact them as below: Early Support team Outreach service, earlysupportteam@hillingdon.gov.uk, telephone - 01895 277183.