Spotlight on: Homeless Prevention Service

The Homeless Prevention Service is a Children’s Services team which aims to help those who are homeless or threatened with homelessness.

What is the purpose of the service?

The team aims to achieve the following outcome:

• A reduction in the number of Intentionally Homeless families requiring support from Children’s Services by identifying and supporting families at the earliest opportunity
• A reduction in Children’s Services spend per intentionally homeless family by developing plans to ensure families become self-sustaining and are not dependant on the local authority.

Who is the service for?

The team will work with families with children and young people aged 0 - 18 (up to 25 years if they have a special educational need or disability). We work with families who are at risk of becoming homeless or have (or about to) receive(d) an intentionally homeless decision from a local district/borough council.

A family could be at risk of becoming homeless if they:

• Have a significant amount of rent arrears
• Have received substantial support via the district/borough council through multiple support plans.
• Have a combination of the above and are not engaging with support provided through the district/borough council.

What does the team do?

The team can support families by offering the following services:

• Employment and training support;
• Help addressing money and debt problems;
• Benefits advice;
• Help liaising with your housing providers including through the Personal Housing Plan process.

The team works under the Families First model (Hertfordshire’s approach to early help) and if it is identified that a family who is at risk of homelessness or is intentionally homeless have additional needs other than housing, the Families First, Homelessness Prevention Team is able to identify further support to overcome these issues. Additional problems could include:

• Support reducing alcohol and/or drug misuse
• Parenting
• Mental and physical health problems
• Parental conflict
• Domestic Abuse
• School related concerns – such as your child not attending school

If safeguarding concerns are identified and these additional concerns require a social care response from one of our Family Safeguarding Teams, the Families First, Homelessness Prevention Team will also be able to ensure that this support is provided in a timely way and will continue to work with families to address their housing needs.

Find out more about this service here.  

Learn more about Safe Space

Safe Space offers children and young people across Hertfordshire a creative, confidential and safe space to explore any issues affecting their everyday lives. The service provides therapeutic support to children and young people via counselling and arts therapy (art, play and drama therapy), as well as mentoring for secondary aged young people.

Counselling and arts therapy is available for 5-19 year olds (up to 21 years with care leavers), with sessions typically taking place within school or college. If the child/young person is not attending an educational establishment, arrangements can be made where possible to see them in an alternative, appropriate space or via online support.

There is a cost attached to these provisions. Depending on the circumstances of the child or young person, funding may be available to support the work.

Mentoring involves the young person meeting with a volunteer mentor for an hour a week in a public place such as a coffee shop or engaging in a social activity, where they can talk and get advice on whatever they would like support with. Typically a mentoring relationship lasts for 6 months. Mentoring is available for *11 – 19 year olds (up to 21 for care leavers and 25 for LDD). * young person aged 11 must be in secondary school.

More detail on the provisions available and information on how to make a referral can be found here: Counselling in schools and mentoring | Hertfordshire County Council.

Or alternatively you can contact the service via safespacemailbox@hertfordshire.gov.uk or 01992 588796.

Name change : Services for Young People (SfYP)

YCH will now be known as Services for Young People (SfYP).

The vision for SfYP is that the needs of young people who are challenged in education, their community or home life are met, to ensure a successful transition to adulthood.

The primary purpose of SfYP is “Enabling Young People to Succeed” through the delivery of targeted prevention and early intervention work to address emerging needs, improve life chances and reduce escalation to more expensive and intensive services.

Youth Workers, Personal Advisers and other practitioners work in schools, colleges, young people’s centres, access points, on the streets and in other local community venues delivering youth work, information, advice, guidance and work-related learning. 

For more information about SfYP including the local offer for young people and contact details for all the teams, please visit www.servicesforyoungpeople.org or email sfyp@hertfordshire.gov.uk

To contact individual teams:

 sfyp.hertsmere@hertfordshire.gov.uk

sfyp.broxbourne@hertfordshire.gov.uk

sfyp.dacorum@hertfordshire.gov.uk

sfyp.eastherts@hertfordshire.gov.uk

sfyp.northherts@hertfordshire.gov.uk

sfyp.stalbans@hertfordshire.gov.uk

sfyp.stevenage@hertfordshire.gov.uk

sfyp.threerivers@hertfordshire.gov.uk

sfyp.watford@hertfordshire.gov.uk

sfyp.welwynhatfield@hertfordshire.gov.uk

sfyp.ldd@hertfordshire.gov.uk

CAMHS Redesign Digital Workstream needs to hear your views!

The CAMHS Redesign & Implementation Programme is seeking the views of professionals working across Hertfordshire’s Children and Young People’s Mental and Emotional Wellbeing System regarding online resources and websites.

 If you work with children and young people, please share your views in order to allow us to understand the digital needs of professionals working across our system. The survey will be open until 1 July 2021, and feedback will be used to inform the work of the CAMHS Redesign & Implementation Digital workstream.

The survey can be found here: https://surveys.hertfordshire.gov.uk/s/CAMHS2021/

SEND improvements & work still to be done

You may know that over the past 2 years, the SEND Transformation Programme has strived to understand user needs and make improvements to services for children and young people in Hertfordshire. In March 2021 that programme came to an end. We’re proud of the achievements we have made, but we also see that our work isn’t done. We have created some new webpages on the Local Offer website to share the achievements so far with you, plus the continuing work happening as part of the SEND Strategy programme.

We’d love to share our progress with as many colleagues as possible, and we will be updating these pages quarterly so they can keep up with the programme too. Please use this link to find out more information and please help us share this information with your teams and networks. 

Consultation on the Early Help Strategy

As the world adapts and changes, becomes more sustainable and continues to strive for improvement, Hertfordshire County Council is no different.

In Children’s Services it is of paramount importance to evolve and refresh approaches, delivery and strategies to ensure that the children, Young people and Families of Hertfordshire receive the support they need when they need it.

Early Intervention remains the sustainable way forward and relies on collaborative working. The Early Help Strategy is to be revisited and consultation with all partners is required.

The purpose of this consultation is two-fold, to allow all partners an opportunity to shape the future of early intervention in Hertfordshire and to strengthen the partnership working that forms the foundation of early intervention in Hertfordshire and its success. 

The opportunity to take part is open to everyone and will form part of a three-strand consultation involving Partners, Parents and Young People. It is important that all voices are heard to ensure joint ownership of the Strategy.

At the next round of Partnership meetings there will be an opportunity to discuss this further, however the consultation process will not take place as part of the partnership meetings and therefore it is important that you register your interest to take part in the consultation process by emailing Familiesfirst.support@hertfordshire.gov.uk.

Closing Date to register for participation is Friday 16^th July 2021, after this date no further interest will be registered to allow the consultation process to move forward.

 

A new goal for Healthy Start Food Campaign

Can you help the County Council reach 5,000 families who are missing out on Healthy Start food vouchers?

The vouchers were increased from £3.10 per child to £4.25 from April following lobbying from England footballer Marcus Rashford, who has now teamed up with TV chef Tom Kerridge to help provide families with recipes to make the most of the vouchers. To access 52 great recipes, based on the voucher scheme, visit Full Time: Get cooking with Marcus & Tom.

If you are at least 10 weeks pregnant or have a child under four years old you could be entitled to Healthy Start Vouchers worth £4.25 per child per week (£8.50 if under 1) to spend on milk, plain fresh or frozen fruit and vegetables, and instant formula milk. You can also use them to buy pulses and canned fruit and vegetables as long as they have no fat, salt, sugar or other flavouring added. The vouchers can be redeemed at local retailers.

If you are entitled to Healthy Start Vouchers you will also get free vitamins designed to help pregnant and breastfeeding women and growing children.

To be eligible you should be in receipt of certain means-tested benefits. Please check your eligibility on www.gov.uk/healthy-start. Pregnant under 18 years olds qualify whether or not they are entitled to a qualifying benefit.

There are over 5,000 pregnant women and young children missing out on £221-£442 per child per year to spend on healthy food, so it’s important to be aware of this useful source of support.

Take-up of the vouchers is very low, around 45 percent of those eligible, so it is important to check eligibility as soon as possible to prevent missing out. Application leaflets are available from GP’s surgeries or baby clinics. Alternatively, a form can be obtained by ringing 0345 607 6823 or by downloading and printing one from www.healthystart.nhs.uk/healthy-start-vouchers/how-to-apply/.

To access free information about benefits and check your eligibility, visit the benefit-checker on Hertfordshire County Council’s website: www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/benefits.

Hertfordshire Personal Safety Survey (Violence Against Women & Girls)

Following the death of Sarah Everard earlier this year, the County Community Safety Unit (CCSU) are currently producing a needs assessment on Violence Against Women and Girls. As part of this piece of work, we are undertaking a public survey of Hertfordshire residents to understand their experiences and feelings of personal safety, which will help to inform recommendations for the needs assessment.

The survey is now open and will remain open until Friday 9^th July and can be accessed using the following web link: https://surveys.hertfordshire.gov.uk/s/XFEVX8/.

We would appreciate your help in promoting this survey through any avenues you have access to (e.g. social media, service user groups) to ensure that we get a diverse range of responses from residents. Please note the survey is open to males and females of all ages to enable us to compare experiences and feelings of safety between males and females, therefore we ask that the survey is any advertising refers to the survey as the ‘Hertfordshire Personal Safety Survey’ to ensure that males are equally encouraged to take part in the survey.

Of course, also feel free to complete the survey yourself if you live or work in Hertfordshire.

If you have any questions or have any thoughts on promoting the survey, please let us know.

 

Young Carers Strategy & Carers Survey

Hopefully you will have seen some information around the Carers Strategy review going on all across Hertfordshire at the moment and Carers in Hertfordshire are here to help make sure that Young Carers have a large part to play in this. They have 3 ways for Young Carers and their families to be involved and they would appreciate all the support you can offer with sharing this message far and wide. 

1. Please share the following Young Carers feedback survey with your networks and to any and all families with Young Carers you know of/work with: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/XXGMX6Q. This survey will remain open until the end of June.

2. Carers in Hertfordshire can also support any Young Carers who might struggle to complete the above survey and please ask them to call the Young Carers team on 01992 586969 or email young.carers@carersinherts.org.uk.

3. Focus groups were also run in May half term for Young Carers and their families to share information with Carers in Hertfordshire about services, schools, what works and what does not work, etc. 

Please do not hesitate to contact Carers in Hertfordshire if you have any questions or concerns. 

Wellbeing Guide for Young People

We were sent this very useful guide which is a great guide to local services, useful contacts, apps and webpages to support young people with their wellbeing and mental health.

This document can be shared with teams and with young people.

COVID-19 vaccine communication materials in community languages

Covid Community Information Champions are NHS doctors, nurses and other staff who have come forward to help reassure communities that COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective and have been independently tested to the highest standards.

Our staff at hertsinterpreting.org have translated these messages into some of the most commonly spoken languages, other than English and they are available for you to use.

Alongside the videos, there are radio interviews and easy read guides, these can all be found here. 

Please also click on the following links to download page 1 and page 2 of the updated newsletter from Hertfordshire's Covid-19 Information Champions.