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Early Help for SEND families

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What is Early Help?

Early Help is someone working with you and your family so that any small problems don’t get bigger. If you are a parent of a child with additional needs, then Early Help may reduce the chance of your child needing higher levels of support in the future.

It’s for everybody from pregnancy up to 25 years if the young person has a disability

Early Help is also the gateway to other services such as ASDAT (Autism Spectrum Disorder Assessment Team) and CAMHS (Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services)

Early help is everyone’s responsibility, any professional who knows your family will be able to talk to you about Early Help.

What do families & professionals say?

Watch our YouTube video about Early Help in Barnsley here

How can an Early Help assessment support with referrals?

An Early help assessment (EHA) with completed actions and review is needed to refer to the ASDAT team as mentioned above.

Evidence from an EHA can support an application for an EHCP

Referral to the Early Bird or Cygnet parenting programmes that offer support for children and young people with Autistic spectrum disorder (ASD)

An Early Help referral is needed to access Targeted Youth Support

🔎 Find out more about Starting your SEND Journey here 

How do I get Early Help?

Talk a professional that knows your family the best. It could be a teacher, someone at your child’s nursery, your health visitor, your GP, or any professional who supports your family.

Tell them what’s working well and what you are worried about, 

Remember you are the expert on your child, or young person, and you will probably have an idea about what they need and what you think will help, this will be the starting point.

The professional will talk to you to understand what is happening and what help you and your family need, they will work with everyone in your family to make sure you get the right support at the right time.

Early Help Navigators

Family Hubs

Early Help Navigators support children, young people and families by providing the right support at the right time.

They work with a wide range of organisations, schools and services to offer information, guidance and support.

Our friendly Navigators will listen to you and help you to work out what is working well in your family and what further help you need.

What support can a Navigator offer?

• Help families to navigate what support is available

• Connect families to additional services

• Offer help, support and advice

• Help families to complete forms

• Signpost families to local and national services

Community Drop Ins

The Navigators hold a weekly drop in at each Family Hub in Barnsley

Monday 1.00pm-4.00pm – Central Family Hub

Tuesday 9.00am-12.00pm Penistone Family Hub

Wednesday 9.00am-12.00pm North East Family Hub

Thursday 9.00am-12.00pm North Family Hub

Thursday 1.00pm-4.00pm Dearne Family Hub

Friday 9.00am-12.00pm South Family Hub

Barnsley Hospital

Keep an eye out for our Family Hub Early Help Navigators, based at Barnsley Hospital 👇






They visit the following wards daily:

Pre-natal, Post-natal, Neonatal, Children’s Ward, Paediatrics ED and Children’s Outpatient.

They can offer advice and guidance around Early Help, including:

  • 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦What groups are available
  • 🍏 Rose Vouchers (They can also issue these within the hospital if you or your child are an inpatient)
  • 🥦 Healthy Start
  • 👨‍👧‍👧 Parenting Courses
  • 💛 Stronger Relationships
  • 📄 Early Help Assessments
  • 🎯 Referrals for more targeted support
  • 🤝 Referrals to other support services

Get in touch

To access the Hospital Navigator please speak to your medical professional at Barnsley Hospital. 

Find out more about Family Hubs 

Visit the Family Hubs & Start for Life pages on the Virtual Family Hub here 



Receiving early help or targeted support could include:

  • Attending a face to face or virtual parenting programme
  • Targeted support from a youth worker, family support worker
  • Referral to more specialist services
  • 1:1 support from professionals who have lots of experience helping families.

What happens after a request for Targeted Early Help Support is submitted?

It will be looked at by the early Help MASH Team (Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub)

They may signpost you to a service who can help, suggest groups in a Family Centre or Youth Groups, online parenting classes or 1:1 help from a Targeted Early Help Support Practitioner, Youth Worker or other professional.

If you have been allocated a Targeted Early Help Support Practitioner, Youth worker or other professional they will aim to contact you within 5 working days.

The Early Help MASH Team will contact the professional who completed the Request for Targeted Early Help Support referal and tell them what support has been suggested.



What if I need more help

If after working through the Early Help Assessment, you or the professional feels additional support is needed they will talk to you about a Request for Service.

This means you will receive targeted support on a one to one basis to work through the issues.

What can Early Help look like

If as a family, you feel you understand what an early help assessment is and how it will help your family then professionals should complete an Early Help assessment.

Not every family needs a Early Help assessment.
Professionals may make some suggestions to try first to see if things improve before completing an Early Help assessment.

They may suggest:


Completing FREE online parenting courses.
You can find details of Solihull Online Parenting courses here


Talking to a support service
You can search for services who can help here (opens in a new window)

You will find detail about:
  • How a service can help you
  • How to contact them
If you do not know the name of the service, you can search by using keywords e.g. anxiety 

Search for a group or activity 
You can search for things to do here (opens in a new window) 



Early Help for Professionals Only

How to contact the Early Help team

If you have any queries about an active or closed EHA you should email earlyhelp@barnsley.gov.uk

Note : The Early Help team receive large amounts of emails daily so you may not get a response the same day . They will reply to your email as soon as possible


Jargon Buster : What does that mean?


Referral an application for support made for you by someone else, usually a professional.
Time limitedwork with people that only lasts a certain time E.g. a 6 week program of support.
Virtual sessiona session that is usually done using a computer, smart phone or other device that can get online.
SurgeryA meeting that could be face to face or virtual.
EHAEarly Help Assessment 


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SENDLocalOffer@Barnsley.gov.uk

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