Early Support : Improving services for disabled children and their families in Wales

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Early Support Improving services for disabled
children and their families in Wales
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What is Early Support?
Mechanism to improve the quality, consistency and
coordination of services for disabled children
under the age of five and their families.

• Its role is to
• Raise expectation about the way agencies and
  services work together to meet the needs of
  children and families
• Promote the development of key worker service
• Support training and development of a
  multi-agency workforce
• Provide practical resources
• Enable families and practitioners to work
  together in partnership.

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Early Support principles

• Wherever possible, families are able to live
  ordinary lives.
• The uniqueness of children and families is valued
  and provided for.
• The care that disabled children receive is based
  on joint assessment, planning and review
  processes that keep parents and carers at the
  heart of discussion and decision-making about
  their child.
• Children and families experience service delivery
  as holistic, co-ordinated and seamless,
  facilitated by a key worker where appropriate.
• Families experience continuity of care through
  different phases of their engagement with
  services.
• Childrens learning and development is monitored
  and promoted.
• Families are able to make informed decisions.
• Families and children are involved in shaping and
  developing services.
• Working practices and systems are integrated.
• Families can be confident that the people working
  with them have the training, skills and
  experience required to meet their childs needs

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What Early Support provides
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Information Website Practical guidance Bilingual
materials
Commitment Everyones responsibility Integrated
working to improve services
Ethos Partnership Family-centred service delivery
Training Integrated Partnership Using the
materials
Practical help Key worker Bilingual
materials Joint planning
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The materials are not the intervention
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The Family file
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Shared information how services work

• People you may meet
• Childcare
• Financial help
• Social services
• Health services
• Education
• Statutory assessment- Education
• Useful contacts and organisations

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Shared information about known conditions

• Autistic spectrum disorder
• Cerebral palsy
• Deafness
• Down syndrome
• Visual impairment
• Multi-sensory impairment
• Speech and language difficulties
• If your child has a rare condition
• When your child has no diagnosis

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Multiagency Planning and Improvement Tool

• Supports planning for implementation of Early
  Support
• Aids multi-agency review and planning for service
  improvement.
• Focuses users on the delivery of family centred
  services
• Helps users focus particularly on services for
  children under five and their families but.
• it can be used as part of a more general service
  review and improvement cycle for children and
  young people of all ages.

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Early Supports progress
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So far we have ......

• Developed a range of bilingual materials.
• Developed a website www.earlysupportwales.org.uk
  
• Engaged a team of consultants who are working
  across Wales
• Developed a training team and started to build
  local capacity
• Commissioned CCNUK to develop key worker training
  and piloted the training
• Commissioned a range of additional work projects
  following three rounds of bids.
• Gathered baseline and one set of follow-up data
  for impact analysis

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Early Support Consultants

• To support engagement of all agencies, parents
  and the voluntary sector as partners in
  implementing Early Support locally.
• To contribute to the development of local
  strategies.

• To promote take up of Early Support training.
• To facilitate local awareness raising.
• To provide briefings and planning support for
  managers
• To support the implementation of Early Support
  through the medium of Welsh, where needed.

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Early Support workforce development

• Providing Early Support for children with
  additional needs and their families (level 4
  accredited course)
• Working in partnership through Early Support
  (accredited _at_ level 5 and non-accredited)
• Using the Early Support Multiagency Planning and
  Improvement Tool (MAPIT)
• Using the Early Support Developmental Journals (4
  courses)
• Early Support parents workshops
• Key worker training

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Additional resources

• We have funded 17 projects across Wales,
  exploring different elements of Early Support and
  how it can be effectively used and implemented in
  Wales eg.
• Autism Cymru Using the Early Support Model in a
  school setting
• MYM Inclusion in the Early Years for Children
  with additional Needs
• Caerphilly ISCAN
• Gwynedd Delivering Early Support in rural
  communities and in Welsh.
• Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire Extending the
  web based Individual Development Plan (IDP) to
  the Early Years.
• ABMU and LAs key to early years.

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Ongoing work

• Rolling out the training programme and building
  capacity
• Developmental journals generic and Down
  syndrome journals are ready, the other two are to
  follow very soon

• Impact analysis and tracking progress
• Raising awareness and supporting implementation
• Working with statementing reform to ensure Early
  Support is part of the new statutory guidance.

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Additional materials future possibilities

• Three new booklets
• Sleep
• Behaviour
• Neurological disorders
• New Developmental Journal focusing on children
  with multiple needs.
• DVD materials or Easy read versions

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Materials

• Copies of all Early Support materials
• can be obtained by-
• Telephone [phone]
• Email ESWales_at_mediascene.co.uk
• Website www.earlysupportwales.org.uk

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Early Support in Walescontacts
Early Support administrator Marcia
Jones marcia.jones_at_childreninwales.org.uk Lead
consultant Kim Bevan kim_at_bevanassociates.co.uk Co
nsortium lead Lynne Hill lynne.hill_at_childreninwa
les.org.uk