Restorative Family Support Service

The service will work with principles of restorative family support and family group decision making approach in each of the six HEART (Help Everyone at The Right Times) areas to identify and support children and families in need of support at the earliest possible point in order to prevent, mitigate and recover from the challenges they are experiencing by recognizing and building on family strengths. The service will provide direct early family focused support to achieve more consistency in identifying and responding to families’ needs. This has the potential to lead to better understanding of agency roles, improved multi-agency working and a more confident service delivery. It is hoped that as early identification improves, help would be offered to families earlier, resulting in a reduced number of referrals upwards into more targeted and statutory services such as area social work teams and CAMHS. In the long term, it is anticipated that resources will be used more effectively. Ultimately, a lower number of children and young people would become the subject of a Child Protection plan, or require to become Looked After