Our teams

Dedicated Schools team

We believe that together we can all help families by building on their strengths, forming relationships and connecting families to their communities. Evidence shows that getting help in the right way at the right time can prevent poor outcomes for children and their families and can improve the resilience of families.

Our dedicated schools team works collaboratively with our school colleagues, to deliver timely and targeted early intervention. There is a dedicated schools team in each of the six district areas:

• Adur & Worthing
• Arun
• Chichester
• Crawley
• Horsham
• Mid-Sussex.

Through the provision of a link worker for each school, the team supports schools to identify children, young people and families that could do with some additional help.

The link workers are able to provide information, advice and guidance, sign-posting and short-term intervention when required. With the aim of improving outcomes for children, they ensure they are supported to prevent issues becoming entrenched and in turn, reducing the need for more targeted intervention or children social care support.

Family Support teams

The Early Help Service within West Sussex is committed to providing a consistent and accessible family focused service for children, young people and their families. This sometimes means providing a service that is targeted for parents or carers but with a focus on improving outcomes for children as well as providing services directly to young people.

Our family support teams provide support through our Enabling Families offer and targeted family support.

The Enabling Families offer, provided by our Family Support Assistants, consists of a short, focused intervention where young people or parents/carers can access between one and five sessions of support with a worker. This offer seeks to help young people or parents resolve issues that are less complex or singular issues that are having a negative impact on their or on family life.

Early Help will help the individual identify their goal to help address and adjust the session accordingly. This offer is also aimed at preventing the need for a higher-level intervention on an Early Help Plan.

Enabling Families offer aims to:

• provide early support to young people and families before an issue escalates, preventing the need for a more targeted intervention
• empower young people, parents and carers to improve identified needs through a solution focused relationship and strength-based approach
• allow young people, parents and carers to be able to access support and advice quickly, and when they recognise they would benefit from support
• facilitate change through the provision of advice, guidance and strategies to support young people, parents and carers
• support young people and parents by increasing knowledge, confidence and resilience.

Our targeted family support offer is provided by our Family Support Workers and Family Support Keyworkers. Children and families typically requiring a targeted intervention tend to feature the following:

• multiple complex issues that impact on the children and family stability
• entrenched or inter-generational patterns of behaviour
• issues that affect the whole family
• a history of children social care (CSC) intervention or police involvement
• a coordinated multi-agency approach is required
• risk of escalating to children’s social care intervention including risk of family breakdown.

Families will also be experiencing some of the Think Family criteria:

• Adults out of work or at risk of financial exclusion and young people at risk of worklessness.
• Children who have not been attending school regularly.
• Parents and children involved in crime and anti-social behaviour.
• Parents and children with a range of health problems.
• Children who need help.
• Families affected by domestic violence and abuse.

Our Family Support teams main purpose is to provide supported help to families experiencing difficulties through regular intervention using a whole family approach. The team will be utilising partner agencies to effect and sustain positive change for the family, individual members and the community around them by:

• developing and maintaining effective partnership working with parents and families
• providing or co-ordinating regular support
• facilitating and delivering interventions which improve parental capacity and family relationships.

Hub Support teams

Our hub support teams work across our 12 Early Help Family Hubs. The Family hubs are in the following locations:

• Adur East (Shoreham)
• Adur West (Lancing)
• Arun East (Littlehampton)
• Arun West (Bersted)
• Chichester
• Crawley Bewbush
• Crawley Broadfield
• Mid Sussex (Haywards Heath)
• Horsham (Needles)
• Worthing Central (Worthing Library)
• Worthing East (Lyndhurst Road
• Worthing West (Durrington)

The hubs are open Monday to Friday between 9.00am-5.00pm where children, young people and families can drop in to access a range of services such as:

• finding childcare
• applying for free childcare entitlement
• finding local activities and support services
• pregnancy and early child development
• parenting
• health advice
• housing and homelessness.

Our Hub Support Assistants are the team located in our family hubs providing a friendly and supportive welcome. They ensure families are provided with information, advice and guidance, and are able to support families to access further intervention and signposting to other services.

We welcome applications from candidates who are interested in part-time roles as Hub Support Assistants.