High Level Intensive Family Support (HLFS)

Aims to maintain children and young people to enable them to live with their own families.  This service is also available to young people over the age of 16 years who are or aim to live more independently.

Intensive Family Support is appropriate where there are significant issues around the safety of children and young people in their environment.  The service offers a 24 hour support to families with whom we work and aims to bring about sustainable changes to minimise risk and assess/inform Children's Services in their care planning and identifying ongoing support needs as appropriate.  Input is intended to be time limited, thought it is recognised that there are some families who require extended periods of longer term family support.

HLFS works with families who are in need of some additional support in order to achieve desired outcomes as defined in CIN/CP plans.

HLFS is a service that wants to help parents or carers make positive changes in their families lives.

Workers believe that parents and carers often want to make changes too, and that working together gives a greater chance of progress.

HLFS works in 'partnership' to allow families to remain together and develop better routines, boundaries and alleviate concerns of significant risk or harm.  We work within the family environment by supporting and helping changes to be made and sustained.

This might include helping clients with parenting, establishing routines and debt management.

Helping to set-up important appointments and support families in attendance, eg with housing, health, schools, looking at budgeting etc.

Workers help families to understand children's behaviour and suggest ways in which behaviour can be managed more effectively.

Work will be based on a plan of interventions and support which will be developed in partnership with the client and the referrer.  It will last as long as required in order to effect positive change, enabling a better environment and future for the whole family.

It is anticipated that packages of support would be in excess of 5 hours per week.

In some cases this could be much higher as in the first instance there may be risk of children being taken into the care of the local authority.

The purpose of the intervention is to help inform and therefore manage risk more effectively.

To avoid short periods of unplanned 'accommodation' of young people, high levels of intensive support are used to reduce risk factors.

Areas of work are normally indentified within the child protection plan/agreed with the social worker/manager.

BDP key worker would become an active member of the core group and would normally attend CPRs as appropriate.

Key worker would maintain regular contact with the social worker with agreed levels of reporting (usually weekly via e-mail).  CP concerns and significant events reported outside of this.