Accessing support for children - up to 17 years

Families First

The Families First service ensures that the needs of children, young people and families across Staffordshire are identified early, the right help is put in place and problems are stopped from getting worse.

Our Families First service employs people with a range of skills to make sure Staffordshire's children and families are safe and well. More information on the different services and support are available, as well as how to access them.

Early help

Staffordshire Early Help Assessment

When a child, young person or family is in need of extra support it is important the best way forward is identified at the earliest opportunity.

Early help in Staffordshire recognises and builds upon a family’s strengths. It isn’t about doing it for them, it’s about helping them to find the right solutions to improve their situation.

The early help assessment (formerly known as the Staffordshire common assessment form or Staffordshire CAF) is a universal tool for practitioners from any service. It can be used with the child or young person and their family to summarise and clearly record current circumstances including areas of need and of strength. This then forms the basis for an agreed way to work together to achieve the improvements in the life of that child and family.

The Staffordshire Safeguarding Children Board have launched a new strategy to help you provide early help to families. A copy of the Staffordshire early help assessment form and further guidance and information on this is available on the Staffordshire Safeguarding Children's Board web site. 

If you work with families, knowing how to put early help in place is your responsibility, wherever you work.

Early help tools

As part of this, some practical, easy to use early help tools have been developed that everyone across the county will be using.

To help you understand Staffordshire's approach to early help a series of web pages have also been created. These pages will be updated with additional information on how to identify, assess and address a family's need for early help.

For further information please see the Staffordshire Safeguarding Children's Board Early Help pages.

Support for children with disabilities

Information on how support for children with disabilities can be accessed can be found on the Staffordshire County Council web site.

Local support teams

Local support teams work with children and young people with a disability or additional need and their families.

Contact details for the local support teams are available on the Staffordshire County Council web site.

Social work support

If more support is needed you can request a social work assessment by contacting the First Response Team.

For more information on social care services for children with disabilities see the Staffordshire County Council web site.