Family Support

Family Support and Early Help at Middleforth

For those who don’t know me yet, my name is Mrs Knight and I am the Family Support Worker and one of the DSL's at Middleforth Primary School. I have an open-door policy, although it is better to make an appointment to be sure I am available. I have a great deal of knowledge and experience that is beneficial to supporting the children and families at our school. I am an ex-teacher and a parent to two beautiful children, one of whom has Autism. 

All support and advice is confidential. Although I can’t say I know all the answers, I can try to help and support you to find a solution or signpost you to the relevant agency for help. Sometimes as parents we just need someone to talk to and to be able to offload problems and worries, and we are here to help with this. Parenting can be challenging at times and is often stressful. 

I work closely with your children, their families, school staff and outside agencies to try to remove barriers to children’s learning to help them to reach their full potential. I complete direct work with children needing support and also provide an ear for them to talk to when needed.

Some aspects of my role is supporting with issues regarding:

• friendship issues
• behaviour - at home and at school
• money issues
• bereavement
• parental separation
• family illness
• housing issues
• linking with agencies and support group
• wellbeing support
• signposting to various agencies
• attending relevant meetings
• one to one support for pupils using a range of interventions

I work full time, during the school term. I may not be able to get back to you straight away but I will always do my best.

You can contact me at:

sknight@middleforth.lancs.sch.uk

or phone me on 01772 746024

Early Help 

Early help refers to the offer of any information, advice or support to children, young people and their families as soon as possible in their lives, or when issues emerge, to help prevent problems from escalating.

Any member of staff in school can support your family with early help. You may simply need a chat, or sign posting to another service. 

Early Help Assessment

Sometimes, the best option is to look into opening up an Early Help Assessment. This is an intervention with a family to gather, explore and analyse with them information about all aspects of the child or young person (and their family's) life and then to identify areas where change will address support needs and positively impact on their lived experiences.

This is recorded on an Early Help Assessment form which includes the family's Early Help Plan.

Your Family's Early Help Assessment is available to all practitioners and professionals working with children, young people, and their families across Lancashire.

Working alongside families from a holistic, strength-based approach when areas of support are first identified will stop escalation towards crisis and the need for more intensive and specialist intervention.

Through the Early Help Assessment, Plan, and reviews via Team Around the Family meetings the wider partnership of services can provide families with the right support at the right time. 

Our local food bank

Times are difficult at the moment and a lot of us are feeling the financial strain. Our local food bank are fantastic and can even meet any dietry needs too. 

Please see below with further details:

Useful services/contacts/links

Parent Information

• Child Bereavement UK"Child Bereavement UK supports families when a baby or child of any age dies or is dying, or when a child is facing bereavement."
• Samaritans"Offering a safe place for you to talk, any time you like, in your own way about whatever is going on in your life."
• Youngminds"YoungMinds is the UK’s leading charity championing the wellbeing and mental health of young people."
• Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)"CAMHS stands for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. CAMHS are the NHS services that assesses and treat young people with emotional, behavioural or mental health difficulties."
• Gingerbread"We provide expert advice, practical support and campaign for single parents."
• Young carers
• https://staywise.co.uk/ - a useful wesbite with ideas on how to teach children to keep themselves safe e.g. online, with water and ice, personal safety, fire safety etc

Phone numbers:

RAIST Team:  01772 215389 Coppull Clinic, Springfield Rd, PR7 5EJ      Drop In: 5pm – 7pm daily

Crisis Team:  0800 013 0708 24/7 urgent advice

PAPYRUS:  0800 0684141 (prevention of young suicide)

CHILDLINE:  0800 1111

Samaritans:  08457 90 90 90

KOOTH.com (live chat counselling)

Young Minds Parents Helpline: 0808 802 5544 Mon to Fri 9.30am – 4pm (Free for mobiles and landlines)

Children’s Social Care:  0300 123 6720 or 0300 123 6722 (out of hours)

Non-emergency Police support: 101

National Domestic Violence Helpline:  0808 2000247

External Family Support

• Children and Family Wellbeing service- The Children and Family Wellbeing Service provide early help on a whole range of issues affecting you and your family. They provide targeted services for children and young people across the age range 0-19+. Working together with key partners, they aim to ensure that we have maximum impact on achieving positive outcomes for your family.
• There is a document below showing the latest timetable of activities - which are all free!  

https://www.lancashire.gov.uk/children-education-families/early-years-childcare-and-family-support/family-support/children-and-family-wellbeing-service/ 

• Domestic Abuse: Domestic abuse is any type of controlling, bullying, threatening or violent behaviour between people in a relationship. Witnessing domestic abuse can have lasting effects on children. If you are an adult experiencing domestic abuse, there are organisations that can help. 

Relate: https://www.relate.org.uk/

National Domestic Violence helpline: https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/

Men's advice line: https://mensadviceline.org.uk/

Women's Aid: https://www.womensaid.org.uk/ 

We can also support children in school with understanding healthy and unhealthy relationships. We often have the Children and Family Wellbeing service in school, and they run a programme called The Freedom Programme in school. 

Mental Health: 

Anna Freud - The overarching aim of our services is to build resilience and to help children, young people and families who are in distress.

https://www.annafreud.org/mental-health-professionals/our-help-for-children-and-families/

Courses Available

There are many different courses available to parents, in order to help and support certain issues or needs. Many of these courses are free, some require you to book on, whilst others you can 'drop in'.

Here are a list of the current courses running (please find the fliers with more information on, in our 'files' list below).

• Incredible Years
• PATH Autism Parent Support
• Various courses from Children and Family Wellbeing including Triple P, Stepping Stones, Freedom.
• Autism Central offers a wide range of free online courses, they also offer 1:1 sessions for parents too
• Timid to Tiger - training for parents whose children present as anxious
• ADHD North West run a 6 week online course. To apply online, click - https://reception06660.wixsite.com/adhd-north-west
• Oliver House Autism courses at Valley Church

Files to Download