A report by the Director of Children, Young People and Education, presented by the Assistant Director, Early Help and Prevention provided Members with an opportunity to apply scrutiny to Wirral’s early help system, led by Children’s Services.

Members were advised how since inception of the Early Help and Prevention Service in 2018, there had been ambition to:

· Optimise the total resource in the system for early help;

· lead high-quality early help services that prevent children and young people requiring statutory intervention; and

· transform services to provide empowering, strengths-based support for  children, young people, their parents, and carers.

Members were informed that the impact of Wirral’s early help system could be evidenced in performance data over a 3 year period (January 2019 to January 2022). Most notably, it was clearly evidenced within the report that reduced demand for children’s social care had been accompanied by increasing numbers of early help episodes, thus indicating that more children, young people, and families were now successfully being supported outside of the statutory system.

An initiative of interest was the implementation of the newly commissioned early help alliance, Family Toolbox that had been instrumental in facilitating a shift in behaviours. It was explained how the family toolbox gave access to a wide variety of supportive experiences for example online resources, one to one family coaching, grassroots activities and group support. Members heard how since launching on 4 April 22, the Family Toolbox had over 3000 unique users viewing over 19,000 pages in its first month. The report detailed some positive feedback from parents and carers.

A query was raised about the accessibility of the website and the accessibility of the website was confirmed to be in accordance with accessibility regulations. Furthermore, Members were advised that the early help alliance have bases across Wirral should individuals wish to meet an agent in person.

In response to a question, Members heard how analytics on website use were in place and although no personal details were collected, a record of use is maintained.

Resolved – That the report be noted.