Early help
Our vision for 2030
A strategy for children (aged from birth to 18) and their families
Welcome to Bromley’s first Early Help Strategy for Children and Families – our vision for 2030.
This strategy is written at a time when the country is emerging from a global pandemic that has significantly impacted on the childhood of our young residents.
The impact of this pandemic will continue to be felt for a considerable time to come. Our children have faced many challenges including remote education, isolation, anxiety, and digital and physical poverty. Our families have shared the challenges of balancing work and home schooling, meeting the educational, emotional and physical needs of their children, and many have been living on reduced income as a result of businesses closing or furloughing their staff.
For those children who have additional needs, such as special educational needs and disabilities, emotional mental health or behaviours that challenge, the lack of access to the normal specialist help and care has led their parents to stress and burn out. And for those with emerging needs, access to help and support from early help services have been impacted.
For those children at risk of harm, the removal of the line of sight from schools, youth clubs and children’s centres has potentially hidden issues.
Like all local authorities, we continue to manage the ongoing change and challenges on us as we transition from pandemic to endemic and we begin to live, work and learn with the virus in our community. The actions set out in this strategy will help us do that.
Our vision for 2030
This strategy is rightly ambitious for us and for our children. The targets we have set out describing what our early help offer will look in 2030 will challenge us; however, by working together with our partners, our families and our children, we are confident that they can all be achieved.
Every day we are collectively working to make Bromley an excellent place for children to grow up, thrive and have the best life chances in families who flourish and are happy to call Bromley home. We have a clear dream which will help us to achieve this:
Our early help ecosystem makes sure that every child in Bromley has a bright, safe and optimistic future
During the lifetime of this strategy, we will be working to achieve four interlocking ambitions. Each ambition is focused on one of the four quadrants that make up our early help model – our children, our families, our practitioners and our resources:
Ambition 1
Our children experience loving and safe homes with consistent and positive parenting which nurtures them and helps them flourish
Ambition 2
Our families are informed about the range of services and support available to them, and how to use them when they need it, so they can be in control of their own lives
Ambition 3
Our practitioners work within a culture that embraces relational and compassionate practice where the strengths of our families are understood and built upon
Ambition 4
Our resources are focused on providing responsive, dynamic and holistic integrated services across health, education and social care which identify need and provide support at the earliest opportunity to meet needs and prevent escalation of concern
This strategy is rightly ambitious for us and for our children. The targets we have set out describing what our early help offer will look in 2030 will challenge us; however, by working together with our partners, our families and our children, we are confident that they can all be achieved.
The Early Help Strategy
Download and read the full strategy.
[PDF, 90 pages]