LGA Early Help ConferenceWigan Council

How to harness the capacity of communities in developing an early help offer

About Wigan

Population of 323,000

70% green space

136,000households

85th most deprived

The Deal principles

How we deliver - Place Based

Current Early Help System – Practice Model• Our current Early Help system is based on the Deal principles, engaging partners

across the wider public sector alongside communities.

• We deliver in places that matter to our children & families and we wrap services

around our anchor settings including Schools, Early Years settings and GPs.

• We encourage ‘different conversations’ that enable us to build meaningful

relationships.

• We ensure that families only have to tell us their stories once and that we have one

plan for a family.

• We adopt an asset / strengths-based approach to working alongside children and

families.

• We recognise the value of engaging children and families in their community

positively as this helps to empower and build resilience.

Current Early Help System – Practice Model

• The Early Help Framework is designed to be utilised by any

agency across the partnership that is working with a child who is

at level 1, 2 or 3 of the threshold of need.

• Our Start Well Service supports children stepping across from/to

Children in Need (CIN) or Child Protection (CP).

• We have invested in the Early Help Module (EHM) which we are

rolling out across the partnership.

• We encourage and give permission for innovation.

Community Engagement and Investment• We are engaging with our communities through the Deal and through the principles of Public Sector

Reform.

• We believe that we have so many assets in our communities, we know that there is so much good

work that has grown and developed organically.

• We value our communities and recognise that they often see solutions that are beyond the local

authority/partners organisations.

• We recognise that our services are sometimes ‘hard to reach’ and families will often engage with our

community sector as they have built a relationship of trust with them. Our community sector can

often facilitate the transference of trust by working together.

• Through community engagement we have had conversations about some of the opportunities and

challenges that are faced.

• Community organisations fed back that they sometimes need support to deliver, both in terms of

finances and training/infrastructure development.

• As a result, 3 years ago we developed the Community Investment Fund.

Community Engagement and investment

£10minvested in communities, over 6 years, by the end of 2018

Opportunity for the community to take control and make a differenceFocus on:• Innovation and bright ideas• Community driven initiatives• Reducing demand on public services• Capacity building• Flexible approach

Practice Model – Place based example – Norley Hall• We recognise that all communities are different and we work to identify all of the assets in a ‘place’.

• Our Start Well Family Centre provide a range of support to families including direct support, commissioned

services and signposting to the community.

• We have equipped staff with mobile devises so that they can touch down at a whole range of bases in the

community.

• Staff have been co-located, they are visible and are working together in the community and building

relationships.

• We are reducing the number of ‘hand-offs’ by working together to provide the right support to families at the

right time.

• We have a number of community assets that are at the heart of what we deliver – eg: Fur Clempt, St

Barnabus Church.

• We have a ‘huddle’ that meets weekly.

• We are testing out a ‘Team Around the School’ approach.

• We are seeing really positive outcomes as a result of our approach.

Early Help - What is next for us in Wigan?• Within the Early Help framework we work alongside families to identify their strengths and we also

look to community assets as part of a child/family plan.

• We recognise the value of engaging children and families in their community positively as this

helps to empower and build resilience.

• We have some community providers that are delivering Early Help and lots that are a part of Early

Help plans.

• We also have some community providers who are initiating Early Help.

• Moving forward, we want to empower more community providers to initiate Early Help as they are

often the people with the best relationship with our children and families. More targeted or

specialist services can join the team around the chid, should there be a need, but the Lead

Professional could still remain as the community organisations.

• We have a training programme which is led through our Early Help Hub which will help us to

facilitate this approach.

Deal 2030 – What’s Next for Communities

• 2650 residents chatted to us on our sofa

• Visited 83 locations all over the borough

• 500 residents took part in the “Video Booth”

• 666 people completed an online survey

• Over 2,000 staff spoken to at LIA’s

• Almost 6,000 people have had their say

• Our social media promotions

• managed to reach 252, 170 people