Early Intervention Panel - Terms of Reference

Purpose

To provide effective and coordinated support to children, young people and their families at the earliest point of identified additional need to ensure children and young people achieve positive outcomes in their lives.

To consider all requests for early intervention and agree relevant support and intervention for the child, young person and their family through multi-agency discussion and decision making.

Aim

  • To maximise access to available resources and provide a holistic family focused decision making forum.
  • To share agency knowledge and information in order to identify the appropriate service provision to meet primary need(s) for the child, young person and / or parents.
  • To ensure a timely response to requests for early help and family support andensure early provision of support.
  • To scrutinise and sign off referrals to the Family Intervention Project (FIP).

Membership

Early Intervention & Family Support Service Manager (chair)

Family and Parenting Support Team Manager (vice chair)

CAF Team

Early Years – Children’s Centres, PVI providers

Youth Services

Youth Offending and Targeted Prevention Service

Education Welfare Service

Teenage Pregnancy

Health Visitor

School Nurse

Child and Adolescent Mental Heath Services (CAMHS)

SEN and Disability Services

Schools Police Liaison Officer – TBC

Housing/Benefits - TB

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Role of Members

To consult local information sources regarding referrals prior to panel meeting.

Share information known about the child, young person and parent fromindividual agency.

To have authority to agree offers of relevant services for the child, young person or parent/carer.

To commit to regular attendance and to ensure an appropriate colleague represents the agency in main member’s absence.

To comply with data protection and multi-agency information sharing protocols.

Member organisations will take responsibility for the timely intervention of support following the decision of the panel.

Member organisations to monitor and track provision of support and provide data to the panel when required.

If individual members disagree with the decisions of the panel, they should raise this within the meeting forum or can contact the chair following the meeting.

Referrals

Referrals must be presented using the agreed Early Intervention Panel Referral Form and supported by a CAF where possible.

Referrals should only be made with the knowledge and consent of the child, young person and/or parent/carer.

Any agency or service can make a referral but it should be made clear in the referral if the referring agency/service is continuing to work with the family and the referral is being made for additional support, or if the agency plans to close their input with the child and/or family.

It remains the referrers’ responsibility to ensure referrals are made in accordance with LSCB guidelines and that where there are CIN or CP concerns referrals should be made to CPAT.

Administration

The panel will meet once a month.

All referrals to be received by no later than the Monday the week before the meeting is due to take place on a Wednesday (i.e. if the panel is on Wednesday 13th June, all referrals will need to be received by no later than Monday 4th June).

All referrals should besent electronically to the panel using the e-mail address below.

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A member of the Early Intervention and Family Support Service will quality assure all referrals to ensure the information is sufficient for decision making prior to dissemination amongst panel members.

All referrals will be centrally logged on the Early Intervention & Family Support data recording sheet (FaST).

The Business Support Team will provide administrative support to the Early Intervention Panel: receiving referrals; distributing the agendaand referrals one week prior to the panel meeting; taking notes of the panel and ensuring the referrer is notified of the outcome from the panel.Additionally, they will send copies of referrals to the agencies/service areas providing support and intervention to children, young people and their families following the panel decision.

The Panel agenda will be:

  • Record of those present
  • Record of apologies
  • Record of absence
  • Matters arising from previous minutes
  • Early Intervention Panel Referrals
  • FIP Referrals
  • AoB
  • Confirm date of next meeting.

The Panel will be quorate when; either the Chair or Vice Chair are present along with one other member from Children’s Trust and two representatives from the broader Children’s Services and/or other agencies.

The Chair and/or the Vice Chair may make ‘Extraordinary Decisions’ prior to Panel and notify members at the next Panel. If deemed appropriate the Chair and/or Vice Chair may hold a ‘Virtual Panel’. Decisions made by this route will be quorate according to standard panel requirements (see above).

Information about the Panel will be made available on the FiND Intranet Page. All referrals should be sent electronically to

For further information and advice on referring families to the Early Intervention Panel please contact: 020 8708 3142.

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