1. WSCB and Wiltshire Children and Young People's Trust Multi-agency Thresholds for Safeguarding Children and Young People.

2. Early help is…
Intervening as soon as possible, through effective targeting.
Responding in a more integrated way to address initial needs and prevent escalation.
Supporting parents, children and young people to develop their skills and resilience.
Appropriate across all ages, not just early years.
Identification and assessment of a child or family at risk.
Safeguarding as part of the continuum of care for children and young people.
Working together in children’s services to keep children and young people safe.
Known to work! (Munro Review, Allen Report, Early Intervention Foundation, and more)
What do we mean when we talk about EI what does it look like?
Early intervention is intervening as soon as possible, through effective targeting, to identify the right children and young people and to tackle problems that have already emerged for them by responding in a more integrated way to address initial needs and prevent escalation. child’s journey- child that presents to Social care with urgent needs... Didn’t suddenly happen,, what was the child’s journey to that point? Where were the opportunities to provide support earlier/
Early intervention aims to influence and support parents, children and young people to develop their skills and resilience to manage the challenges that they may be faced with at key turning points/transitions in their lives. It is appropriate across all ages.
Early intervention services are delivered following identification and assessment of a child or family at risk, with a view to intervening or offering more specialist support.
 Early intervention is key to effective practice in safeguarding. It is part of the continuum of care for children and young people and involves all who work in children’s services working together to keep children and young people safe and to prevent the escalation of problems to the level where they require crisis intervention or specialist support
Munro says the arguments for early help are three-fold:
The moral argument for minimising adverse experiences for children and young people. Endorsed by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Children Act 1989.
The argument of ‘now or never’ arising from the evidence of how difficult it is to reverse damage to children and young people’s development.
It is cost-effective when current expenditure is compared with estimated expenditure if serious problems develop later.

3. Local context Ofsted , 2013, Areas for improvement
“improve multi-agency support for the common assessment framework so that professionals are confident that the support they offer is protecting children and the need to refer to social care is reduced.”
Early Help Strategy, 2014, and Early Intervention Sub group
(joint WSCB and Wiltshire Children and Young People’s Trust)
Development of improved early help services – e.g. Community Health Services, Children’s Centres, Council’s Early Help Service) – and creating local Early Help Hubs
Improving access and pathways to early support services
Improved Safeguarding Thresholds guidance and Early Help CAF form
Key points:
All our issue to help reduce demand on social care – want them to be able to deal with the children who most need their services
Governance – oversight of the strategy and implementation plan through EI sub (joint WSCB and Children's Trust), includes oversight of an Early Help dataset ( e.g. Includes data on number of CAFs with particular presenting issues, how many young mums compared to how many with CAFs etc.)
Development of early help services – there is re-structuring and re-commissioning of some services to make them more locality based and to establish early helps hubs ( e.g. Community health services, children’s centres etc), more roles will now be involved in early help ( add capacity to system)

4. Wiltshire Multi-agency Thresholds Document (revised December 2014)
Joint WSCB and Children's Trust
Reflects aspirations of Wiltshire Early Help Strategy, 2014 – right support at right time
Provides important guidance to those working with children and young people on understanding their levels of need and what to do to get the right help for them.
Intended for everyone who works directly or indirectly with children, young people and their families in Wiltshire whether from a statutory, voluntary, private or independent agency/setting.
Key points:
Joint document, as is strategy - key area of work for both executives and demonstrates that all have signed up to this as a way of working
Guidance is for everyone form whatever service or sector, including voluntary, private sector, adult sector etc – expectation is that it will be disseminated across all services, you can help with that dissemination

5. Wiltshire Multi-agency Thresholds Document (revised December 2014)
What’s new...
Updated flowcharts on what to do (covering Early Help CAFs and My Support Plans)
Clear safeguarding thresholds and levels of need, including issue descriptors and our ‘Windscreen Diagram’
Wiltshire's Early Help offer (providing a summary of the key universal and targeted early help services available in Wiltshire)
“Focus on ...” sections on specific issues and what to do next…(e.g. neglect, abuse, child mental health concerns and more)
Key things to explain:
Document has grown again from pages, intended to be a one stop shop, all info you need in one place
Updated threshold and levels of need windscreen p.7
Updated flowcharts p including one on early help CAF or my support plan
Focus on ... – pages 19-28, provide further details on specific safeguarding , includes details on who is more vulnerable to particular issue, signs of.., and what to do ( CSE, missing, neglect, child mental health)
Wiltshire’s early help offer and targeted services p – providing information about what is available and who to contact
Descriptors p – list of potential indicators as a guide for professionals in deciding where the level of need sits. Emphasise this is not a comprehensive list, not a tick list and is a guide .
Wiltshire Pathways has key parts of the threshold document separately ( including focus on sheets ...etc) , also includes an exemplar early help CAF

6. Our “Windscreen diagram”
1 : needs met by universally accessible services
3 : Child/family struggling to cope - multiple needs not possible to resolve at previous levels. Needs coordinated response, possible statutory /specialist assessment and intervention
2a : specific unmet need – may require early support
2b : multiple unmet needs and early signs of emerging needs that require collaborative, multi-agency targeted early support
4 : Child/family not coping - serious concern that need is for specialist statutory intervention or child protection.
The Windscreen – used widely across Wiltshire to describe safeguarding thresholds in one visual – shows spectrum of support and the ability of child’s needs to rise and fall over time – called the ‘Child’s Journey’.
Wiltshire windscreen – describe the levels, comment on shift of funding to tier 2/3
Some attendees today may already know some history around the development of our MASH – ie there has been, and still is, huge pressure coming in at level 3…Early Help is key to shifting that top-down demand to earlier interventions
Explain MAFs and SARFs – where they sit on the windscreen and purpose –
MAFs – TOR: promote integrated working and information sharing, locally managed and operated, facilitate advice and signposting, can identify and respond to gaps locally – Anyone been to one – want to share experience?
Explain we are going to spend more time talking about the CAF process as a key tool in integrated working and early intervention
Approx 1,300 CAFs open at any one time
76% of recorded contacts and referrals with social care do not meet threshold (Spring 2013)
Explain we will look at the different elements thought the day

7. Further Information and Tools
Wiltshire Pathways Website
Area CAF Coordinator details
MAF dates and contacts
Multi-agency Safeguarding and Child Protection Training
Multi-agency Thresholds for Safeguarding Children – guidance, flowcharts, tools
Wiltshire Safeguarding Children Board
Child Protection procedures and professional resources
Policies and protocols (e.g. Escalation Policy for Professional Dispute resolution