What are Restorative Early Support Teams
Restorative Early Support (RES) teams bring together social work and family support staff locally, with the aim of trying a more flexible, multi-disciplinary approach to working with families to help them solve their problems within their own communities.
RES teams are additional to and not instead of cluster and early help resources, responding to the various levels of complexity in the presenting needs of children, young people and families which may exceed the early help or cluster offer but would not require a child protection response from social work fieldwork teams.
The teams have been established in those clusters with the highest levels of social work and family support needs, for example - high numbers of referrals to social work services.
There are seven RES teams aligned to the following clusters:
2gether; Seacroft & Manston; Inner East;
JESS; BCM; Bramley and Inner North West; and Armley & Farnley.
The RES teams are a key element of Leeds’ government funded Innovation and Partners in Practice Programme however the model was first developed through local initiative and partnership working in the 2gether cluster.
What is the vision for the RES teams
The RES teams have identified the following essential elements to their vision:
- enhancing the early help offer
- bringing social work closer to schools
- providing additional resources that build on existing relationships between schools, clusters and area social work
- improving the 3A’s:
- Attend (school or education setting regularly)
- Achieve (socially, for example - having friends, a good relationship with at least one trusted adult, and participating in extra-curricular activities)
- Attain (reach academic potential) - helping to reduce re-referrals and repeated or unnecessary assessments
- helping to divert families away from statutory interventions
- supporting the aim of safely reducing the numbers of children needing to become looked after
How do the RES teams work
The teams work to the Leeds Practice Model which builds on all aspects of practice and what we know to be useful when assessing, implementing and evaluating what we do.
The Leeds Practice Model contains the three key elements of:
- Rethink Formulation
- Leeds Practice Principles
- Outcome Focused Supervision
Each RES team continues to benefit from support from the Rethink Team about all aspects of Leeds Practice Model.
The RES teams use Rethink Formulation with all the families they work with, agree goals with them which forms their plan and review progress on achieving the goals intensively (often weekly). Each formulation and the family plan is discussed in group supervision — an integral feature of how the RES teams work.
How referrals are made to the RES Teams
All referrals to the RES teams start with a conversation with the relevant RES Team Manager and there is no specific referral form. Support offered is either for early help or child in need work.
The RES teams do not hold waiting lists. The work is focused on providing the right support at the right time for the family. Referrals come from:
- schools who are connected to a local cluster and speak with their Targeted Services Leader/ Manager in the first instance who will contact the local RES team
- area social work team managers who can step cases down to RES, and plans are in place for Duty and Advice to refer directly to RES teams from the Front Door
- Early Help Hubs
- allocations panel (regular decision making point to access early help and targeted support services)
- parent and carers
- other agencies
Key contacts
The RES teams can be contacted on the following phone numbers:
East North East
2gether: 0113 378 2478
Inner East: 0113 535 1523
Seacroft and Manston: 0113 378 2478
South
JESS: 0113 535 1521
BCM / Morley: 0113 535 1520
West North West
Bramley: 0113 535 0007
Armley and Farnley: 0113 535 0303
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