Early Help at The Cathedral Catholic Primary School

Working with you and your family

At The Cathedral Catholic Primary School we are keen to help every family within our school community. We recognise the challenges that families face bringing up children. Family life can be complicated and sometimes you may need some support. If you have a problem at home, please get in touch with Mrs Blamire or Mrs Speak – we can support you in lots of ways.

What is Early Help?

The purpose of Early Help is to support the well-being of children and families by tackling emerging needs at the earliest opportunity and prevent them from getting worse. This means working with you to identify any support you may need and gain access to additional services that can promote positive outcomes.

Effective Early Help may be delivered at any point in your child’s life about any issue which is impacting or could affect their development and well-being, including education and health.

We will ensure that we:

  • Gain your consent and are open and honest.
  • Seek your views and opinions.
  • With your consent, work jointly with other professionals and services already working with your family.
  • Empower you to gain positive outcomes.
  • Allocate a lead person to help co-ordinate any support put in place.
  • Consider the age and stage of your child’s development to make sure that actions are appropriate and inform our expectations and concerns.
  • Keep you and your child involved and informed.

Early Help services should support and strengthen families so that they can thrive. There are many ways in which we can help as outlined in our offer of early help below.

Support for families may include:

  • Advice and support to promote good attendance.
  • Emotional support for parents.
  • Support during appointments and in meetings.
  • Help to complete paperwork and forms eg. Court appearances, housing, school letters, grant applications and benefits.
  • Liaising with external services eg. Housing, SEN support services and Children’s Social Care.
  • Referrals to outside agencies eg. School Nursing Team, Speech and Language, Paediatric Learning Disability Team.
  • Information on local specialist training events linked to additional needs thoroughly the termly SEND newsletter.
  • Completing an Early Help Assessment which may involve support from external agencies
  • Providing information and signposting to other services in your local area.

Support for children whilst in school may include:

  • Sensory circuits
  • Emotion coaching
  • Promoting positive behaviour and support to reduce anxiety.
  • Developing positive friendships
  • Relaxation techniques
  • Support with loss and bereavement
  • Key worker check ins and check outs
  • Bespoke learning interventions
  • Preloved uniform
  • Additional transition support
  • Extra-curricular clubs
  • School nurse support
  • Social communication sessions
  • Time to Talk programme
  • Inside out programme run through CFWS (Children and Family Wellbeing Service)
  • Lego Therapy
  • Play Therapy
  • Support from The Ark

Where can I get Early Help?

If you feel you and your family might need support to solve some problems, please do not hesitate to contact Mrs Blamire and Mrs Speak via the school office (01524 64686) or by email k.blamire@cathedral.lancs.sch.uk or m.martindale@cathedral.lancs.sch.uk

What will happen when I ask for Early Help?

Mrs Blamire or Mrs Speak will give you a call to either complete a home visit or you could come into school, and we will talk about the problems you’re experiencing. They will ask what help and support you think you might need. This is called an Early Help Assessment.

An Early Help Assessment is nothing to be worried about. It’s just a conversation to work out how to help you determine what it is you feel you need support with and how this can be done. You can talk about things that are going well and things that you’re proud of as well as things that you are finding a challenge.

We will also discuss your child or children in your family to make sure we understand how they are feeling and anything they think they might want some help with.

What happens next will be different for every family. If an Early Help Assessment is carried out and actions are identified, we will then call Team Around the Family (TAF) meetings. Again, this is nothing to be worried about. It just ensures we have a regular meeting with all professionals involved to get the best outcome for the family. You have control over what happens next and can say what you want.

If you have any questions please contact Mrs Holt or Mrs Grierson.

Advice and support provided to families by any member of the school team is confidential, however, any safeguarding concerns will be managed in accordance with our school’s safeguarding policy. Should you wish to view this, a copy of this is available on our website under our safeguarding policy.

Family Hubs

A Family Hub is a place where children, young people and their families can access support. It is a place where organisations like the NHS, schools provide you with the help you need without having to repeat yourself to different people.

Click here to see what is going on in Lancaster and Morecambe.