What are the Early Help Hubs?
The Early Help Hubs are multi-disciplinary teams in the East, West and South of Leeds. The
three hubs were established in the summer of 2019 as a key part of the Leeds early help
offer. As of April 2021, they are based in the Compton Centre (East), Albion House (West)
and Cottingley Children’s Centre (South).
In each team there is a Hub Manager, early help practitioners and project support, alongside
an Alcohol and Substance Use Coordinator, a Domestic Violence and Abuse Coordinator, and
a Mental Health Coordinator. In addition there are police officers in each hub and strong links
with the Families First employment co-ordinators from the Department of Work and Pensions.
The teams are also co-located with other partners including (but not restricted to) the
clusters and Family Action (commissioned service for family support).
The Early Help Hubs provide advice and support to clusters and partners working in the three
localities to ensure seamless, co-ordinated and effective early help support and a ‘getting it
right first time’ response.
Why have the hubs been developed?
The Early Help Hubs have been developed to build capacity in the early help workforce
across the city by adding value and maximising existing provision as follows:
A single point of contact – offering a place for practitioners to go to when they need
advice or support with early help practice; being guided and connected to the right
service and agency to enhance their work with children and families;
Right conversation, right people, right time - often families reappear in our early help
and social care systems because the help they have received has not been right for
them, so there is the need to try to ‘get it right first time’ with families;
Think Family Work Family - further embedding think family principles across the
partnership to ensure holistic support for families;
Leeds Practice Model - embedding the Leeds Practice Model;
Strengthening communities and supporting the Child Friendly Leeds principles – children
live in families, families create communities, and communities make cities. This includes
using strength based approaches to develop and support community capacity, for
example, the development of EPEC (Empowering People Empowering Communities) and
supporting funding opportunities;
Three As – Embedding and supporting the Three As strategy – Attainment, Attendance
and Achievement - alongside other shared priorities;
Making best use of shared data and intelligence – taking a proactive approach and using
shared data and intelligence to enhance our offer to children and families; and
Cluster partnerships —enhance and add value to cluster partnerships.
What might this mean in practice?
Here are a few examples of Early Help Hub work in practice:
- An Early Help Practitioner working alongside a school learning mentor to develop their
confidence and skills to lead early help plans;
- A Domestic Violence Co-ordinator supporting a cluster practitioner’s work with a victim of
domestic abuse;
- A Mental Health Co-ordinator delivering a mindfulness group for parents accessing a
local children’s centre;
- An Early Help Practitioner undertaking a holistic early help assessment to support a
cluster; and
- A Hub police officer undertaking a joint visit with a cluster family support worker in
response to concerns about potential knife crime.
What difference do the Early Help Hubs hope to make?
The hubs aim to ensure:
- Improved outcomes for children and families;
- Families are getting the right support at the right time;
- The workforce feel supported and are confident in their practice;
- Improved co-ordination, reduced duplication and smarter joined up working across the
partnership;
- Proactive approaches to getting it right first time;
- Additional capacity and expertise is made available to address the needs of those most
vulnerable and to trial new approaches to practice;
- Increased community capacity and asset based approaches such as EPEC; and
- Help to reduce budgetary pressure on statutory social work intervention by enabling
sustained investment in preventative and early help services.
Key contacts or for more information
For more information contact the Families First Team tel: 0113 37 81840 or
families.first@leeds.gov.uk
Practitioners can contact the Early Help Hub Managers for advice and support:
East Leeds - Lauren Dunstan, Early Help Hub Manager lauren.dunstan@leeds.gov.uk
West Leeds - Jonathan Roberts, Early Help Hub Manager jonathan.roberts@leeds.gov.uk
South Leeds - Julia Pope, Early Help Hub Manager julia.pope@leeds.gov.uk
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