Issue details

To consider the report of the Cabinet Member for Education and Skills in consultation with the Cabinet Members for Health and Sustainable Living and Children’s Social Care seeking the consideration of the options for achieving a more integrated offer of prevention and early help services for children 0-19 and their families and to give approval to progress with the preferred option, subject to appropriate consultation.

The aim of the 0-19 prevention and early help service offer is to bring together a range of health and local authority services to deliver a strengthened prevention and early help offer based around localities, schools and communities. By so doing, it is intended to provide families with a seamless journey of support (where they get the right information, the right help and the right challenge by the right person at the right time) that enables them to manage independently, thereby increasing family resilience, promoting the protective factors for children and young people and reducing the need to resort to expensive specialist or statutory intervention.
These services include a range of services some of which are delivered in house (Children's Centres and Families Matter) whilst others are commissioned through contracts (Public Health Nursing, Oral Health Promotion, Breastfeeding support and healthy settings promotion and awards).
The options for integrating this offer range from alignment and partnership working through to full integration of services under a single management structure and lead provider