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Family Wellbeing / School Early Help

Riddings Infant and Nursery School fully recognises its responsibilities for Child Protection and Safeguarding. Safeguarding arrangements at Riddings Infant and Nursery School are underpinned by three key principles:

Safeguarding is everyone's responsibility: all Staff, Governors and Volunteers should play their full part in keeping children safe.
That Riddings Infant and Nursery School operates a child-centred approach: a clear understanding of the needs, wishes, views and voices of children.
That all Staff, Governors and Volunteers have a clear understanding regarding abuse and neglect in all forms; including how to identify, respond and report.

What is Early Help?

Riddings Infant and Nursery School works to provide Early Help to families in our school community. From October 2019 we have been providing Early Help for the families in our school. We work alongside a variety of agencies and provide support through the school setting.

Our Early Help support aims to both provide advice and support where there is evidence of children and/or their families needing some extra help. Our aim is to provide support as early as possible to help stop difficulties becoming worse and preventing the need to involve other services at a higher level. This may be behaviour support, parenting advice, bereavement counselling, health advice, or for specific medical issues.

If you feel that your child or your family might benefit from additional support then please talk to any member of staff or specifically Mrs Bartlett, Mrs Fox Mrs Farnsworth or Miss Kamillo.

School provides Early Help to families in our school community. We provide support through school and have additional support from the Early Help Advisory Team. We aim to provide Early Help services supporting in the school setting wherever possible and as part of our Early Help offer, the school uses Positive play and Lego therapy to support children in school. This particularly offers support for children suffering from anxiety and other issues affecting their well-being.

Our Early Help support aims to both provide advice and/or intervene where there is evidence of emerging needs with the objective of preventing escalation to higher level services.

We are always happy to help where we can and to try and help you find the right agency to support you. We will ask for individual tailored support that best meets the needs of individual situations. If in any doubt, please come and talk to us. We are here for you.

Early Help

Our primary aim is to identify needs early and to make sure that appropriate support is put into place. ALL staff recognise their role in ensuring safeguarding practices to ALL children at ALL times. We believe that information sharing and timely, effective support can ensure that ALL children and families get the best opportunities. Families may need support from a wide range of agencies and services and we know that other agencies will be able to support families based on their specialised work.

Therefore, our role is often to signpost families to the resources that will best support need.

What might we be able to offer?

Breakfast Club
Positive Play
1:1 pastoral support
Family Support Worker
Lunchtime Play Leaders
Key adult meet and greet
Learning interventions e.g. reading, maths, phonics
Parent workshops
After school extra curricular activities
Second hand uniform
Additional support from outside agencies

Who might the school refer to?

The Early Help Team
Children and Young People's Services
Counselling Services
Parental Courses
School Nurse
Speech and Language Therapist
Educational Psychologist
Young Carers

At Riddings Infant School we meet the needs of our children through a variety of different ways.

We have an open door policy to communicate, providing time to talk to parents, children and families, to ensure all our children are safe, happy and learning.

We are available to talk via telephone, direct email, face to face and provide time for our parents to communicate and work with us eg through Parent Consultations and good daily availability .
Our children are actively encouraged to speak about any concerns they may have to a member of staff. The children know that our staff take all concerns seriously and know that they can speak to any responsible adult in school.
Children can put worries into the Worry Monster boxes in all classrooms.
We have an effective PHSE curriculum that supports children and develops key skills, not only for school, but for life.

Recording, Reporting and Referrals

Based on the needs of each family, staff will coordinate the support of the appropriate services. If appropriate we might hold a TAF (Team Around the Family) meeting to make sure the work of all the agencies is happening.

Joint working arrangements with agencies, such as school health, CAMHS (Child and adolescent mental health service) and with the PCSOs (police community support officer), are in place and information can be shared where necessary.

The Headteacher (DSL – Designated Safeguarding Lead) has case management responsibility. They identify needs based on the safeguarding thresholds e.g. low level, emerging, complex/serious (Section 17) or Child Protection concerns (Section 47). If emerging needs are identified then the Derbyshire Safeguarding Children’s Board approved Early Help Assessment Form can be used and is then reviewed under the single plan format with reference to the safety and wellbeing grid.

Our recording system, ‘MyConcern’ is available online for staff to record information and concerns, this is closely monitored – identifying patterns/ frequency of concerns and the actions that have been taken.

If one of our vulnerable children moves school, we will ensure that information is shared with the receiving school. Depending on the level of safeguarding need it may be appropriate to hold a meeting, have a telephone conversation.

Where there has been no improvement to the welfare of the child, and there are escalating concerns around the safety and wellbeing of a child, staff will step up the Early Help Assessment to Starting Point. The Pastoral Lead and the Headteacher meet regularly to discuss the children and families and the progress that is being made.

Next steps after Early Help

Following a review of a family’s needs, or if there is a crisis, it may be appropriate to escalate the level of support. At the stage where our support has not been successful a social worker may become involved although we will continue to support children and families. Ongoing communication with all services involved continue to be essential.

The Headteacher or representative will always be available to represent the school at Case Conference or Child in Need Reviews should these be called.

If you are concerned about the safety of a child or require urgent help or advice Call Derbyshire on 01629 533190.

Requests for early help can be made face to face, via the school office or by using the contacts below:

Mrs R Farnsworth - Head teacher and Designated Safeguarding Lead

Miss L Kamillo - Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead & Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator

Mrs Kerry Bartlett - Pastoral Lead

Mrs Fiona Fox - Wellbeing mentor

Mrs Rachel Christian - Family Support Worker

email info@riddings-inf.derbyshire.sch.uk