Family Hubs support families with children up to the age of 19, but many extend their support up to the age of 25 where a child has special educational needs or disability.
In terms of the early years, paediatric provision is often closely integrated with other services, to address associated social care, mental health, and educational needs.
Support services provision for those with SEND and their families at Family Hubs is bespoke and diverse. Please find below an example of good practice from the Early Years SEND Partnership and Doncaster.
Early Years SEND Partnership
Family Hubs Network have been collaborating with the Early Years SEND Partnership to best support young children with special educational needs and disabilities.
The Early Years SEND (EYSEND) Partnership is a national programme supporting professionals and parents with training, resources, and an approach to sharing learning, with the aim of increasing access and inclusion in early years for children with SEN and Disabilities. The website provides plenty of resources and information on the topic of SEND and the early years.
There are six Partners that make up the Partnership, each with a different speciality in SEND:
- Council for Disabled Children (lead partner) – statutory duties and ordinarily available provision
- nasen – a whole setting approach to SEND
- Speech and Language UK – speech and language communication pathways
- Contact – coproduction with parents and carers and supporting underserved communities
- Dingley’s Promise – inclusive practice support for transitions
- Early Childhood Unit (ECU) at the National Children’s Bureau – the home learning environment
EYSEND Partners are working with Family Hubs networks to best support disabled children and children with SEN during their earliest years. There are three main strands of activity:
- Strategic support to family hub areas through regular meetings or ‘action learning sets’
- Targeted training for practitioners from family hub areas.
- Open-access training for parents and carers.
The programme is DfE-funded so all training, seminars, events and strategic support are free to access. See more about their upcoming training and seminars by accessing their training calendar.
For more information please contact EYSend@ncb.org.uk or sign up to their newsletter mailing list here.
Family Hubs (Doncaster) – Denise Beevers
What do you offer for SEND children and their families?
- Doncaster Family Hubs are the ‘go to’ place and many families call in for advice, information and guidance where they can be signposted to professionals who can support.
- We support families to identify any early signs if there has not been a diagnosis and then support families to access the correct pathways
- We are inclusive within any groups and activities to enable SEND children to attend universal sessions if appropriate. All buildings are DDA compliant.
- Family Hubs are used by a range of other professionals and organisations to meet with SEND families both individually and in groups
- The Early Year’s SEND team and portage (a home-visiting educational service for pre-school children with SEND and their families) teams work very closely with Family Hubs many based in Hubs and attend team meetings.
- As part of the Early Help pathway and with any families we may be working with directly we work with a wide range of partners to offer the most appropriate support
How does working through the Family Hub model enable you to provide better support?
I think our biggest strength is our partnership working that has developed over time. This has been enhanced more recently as more partners have joined a Locality Model (mirroring the way Family Hubs were initially developed). In addition to working with a wide range of partners, Family Hubs have developed trusting relationships with families and are aware of place-based issues with a wealth of local intelligence.