Locality & Community Support Service
Locality & Community Support Service
Advice and guidance to support vulnerable children, young people and families within their community
LCSS are present in schools and work in the community with partners, both to offer advice, but also to take strategic responsibility for bringing partners together in localities to embed early help and collectively improve outcomes for children and families.
LCSS support families and partner agencies with Early Help, Oxfordshire has a Locality Community Support Service that gives advice and support in relation to the Strengths and Needs Form and Team Around the Family meetings that are vital tools in supporting Early Help in the community.
What is Early Help?
Most children and their families have a good quality of life with minimal support from public services. But at times family life and bringing up children can be demanding and complex. Problems can arise and families may need extra help from universal, targeted and specialist services.
Early help can make the biggest difference. When needs are identified in a timely way, children and families can be supported before problems escalate. Working with a child and their family to address their needs early can reduce risk factors (needs) and increase protective factors (strengths).
Early help is the collection of all services that work with children and families and how they work together in a co-ordinated way to support children when additional or complex needs are identified.
All agencies working with children and families are responsible for listening to their concerns and worries, to make sure the right support at the right time is offered. This includes using the Strengths and Needs (a tool to explore family life) and where necessary a Team Around the Family (TAF) meeting to ensure co-ordinated support for children and families takes place.
We want families to know that it is always OK to ask for help
Oxfordshire has an Early Help Strategy which all partner agencies are signed up to, ensuring families are offered Early help when emerging need is identified
Strengths and Needs
When a child or family is identified as benefiting from early help, a whole family, multi-agency Strengths & Needs form should be completed. This can be completed by:
- the professional identifying the need of the family
- by any professional who knows/has a relationship with the family or is part of a network that supports the child/family
- a professional identified by the family as the most appropriate person to support them with the Strengths & Needs conversation
Using the following:
- Strengths & Needs Form
- Strengths & Needs Guide – Prompts to support conversations
- Young Carers Form – to help identify children who are young carers
Locality Community Support (LCSS) review all Strengths & Needs Forms and support practitioners to complete them where appropriate, and offer feedback to support on-going professional development – this is all with an aim to ensure families are supported well