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

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

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. Children’s 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 child’s needs

What Early Support provides

TrainingIntegratedPartnership Using the materials Practical help Key worker Bilingual materials Joint planning InformationWebsite Practical guidance Bilingual materials EthosPartnership Family-centred service delivery Commitment Everyone’s responsibility Integrated working to improve services

The materials are not the intervention

The Family file

Shared information: how services work People you may meet Childcare Financial help Social services Health services Education Statutory assessment- Education Useful contacts and organisations

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

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.

Early Support’s progress

Developed a range of bilingual materials. Developed a website – 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 So far we have......

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.

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 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

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.

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.

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

Materials Copies of all Early Support materials can be obtained by:- Telephone: Website:

Early Support in Wales…contacts Early Support administrator Marcia Jones Lead consultant: Kim Bevan Consortium lead: Lynne Hill