Early Help Offer
Ss. Mary and John Catholic Primary School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Early Help means providing support as soon as a problem emerges, at any point in a child’s life, beginning with Early Years Foundation Stage.
We endeavour to create a school ethos that promotes trust between all adults and children; so that all children know who they are able to talk to if they have any concerns or worries.
You can speak to any member of staff; the safeguarding team, a senior leader, your child’s class teacher or key person about any concerns you have or support you may need. All staff at Ss.Mary and John Catholic Primary School are committed to the welfare and wellbeing of every child as well as promoting positive relationships and a supportive and inclusive environment for all.
Providing Early Help to our children and families means we are more effective in promoting support as soon as we can.
We believe that safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility.
You can see Designated Safeguarding Leads on our Safeguarding page.
Our Early Help Offer
Early Help is a pathway to supporting you and your child as they grow up when you or they may need further support or guidance. Providing early help to our pupils and families means we can improve outcomes for children, families, and communities, providing support as soon as a problem emerges, at any point in a child’s life, from the early years through to teenage years.
Early Help can support children and their families who may be struggling with:
- Routines and family rules.
- Families who may be not be eating healthy food.
- Keeping to a healthy lifestyle.
- Children who are caring for a family member.
- Children who may not want to go to school for different reasons.
- Disability within the family including children being a young carer.
- Children in the family have special educational needs (SEND).
- Children who may becoming involved in anti-social or criminal behaviour.
- Children who go missing from home.
- Children or parents / carers misusing drugs or alcohol.
- Children at risk of being tricked, forced, or made to work in the criminal world.
- Children who may need support because they may live in a home and see drug or alcohol abuse or adult mental health problems.
- Children who have parents who argue a lot (and sometimes might hurt each other) whether the parents live together or apart.
- Children at risk of being groomed to join groups which support illegal views.
- A privately fostered child (a child from another family living within your family home).
Early help relies upon local groups and people in the community, sometimes we work together to help children, young people, and their families. Everyone needs help at some time in their lives and therefore an ethos of early help is important for any school.
These are some of the ways that we support our pupils and families here at Ss.S Mary and John Catholic Primary School:
Open Door Policy
Our school operates a true ‘Open Door’ policy. This means that senior staff are on the gates every day both before and after school or pre-school and that one member of the leadership team is available and on duty, without an appointment every day. At busy times, you may need to wait but someone will see you and hear your concerns.
Class teachers will also always make themselves available to speak to parents and carers within 24 hours. We can’t guarantee that a specific teacher will always be instantly available, especially immediately before school as they start teaching at 8.34am but they will either get back to you by phone call or email or at the end of the school day if you have a pressing issue that you need to discuss. You can also make an appointment to speak to your child’s class teacher for less urgent matters and do not have to wait for the next parents’ evening.
Learning Mentor
Our learning mentor, Mrs Alice Griffin, is in school every week, Monday to Wednesday, working with and supporting children identified by school staff and assessing barriers to learning whether these are academic, social, emotional or behavioural.
Mental Health First Aid
Mrs Vernalls and Miss Vale are our designated Mental Health First Aiders for Adults in school and have completed the relevant training for this.
Mrs Lynch and Mrs Du Noyer are our designated mental health first aiders for children and have completed the relevant training. They are available to speak to any parent who is concerned about their child’s mental health and offer support for this. This would need to be booked in due to the sensitivity of the conversation.
Compass
Compass are a mental health support service that work with children and their families who are experiencing difficulties with thier mental health. They can meet with parents to assess whether they feel the child would benefit from working with their service and then work with the child in school to address the concerns.
SEND Drop-in Service
Any parent or carer with a worry or concern about their child’s learning, behaviour, mental health or wellbeing is able to attend the SEND Drop in service at school details of which are in the newsletter each week. No appointment is necessary.
Parents and carers are also welcome to contact school either by phone, email or calling in at the school office to make an appointment to meet with any member of the senior leadership, safeguarding or SEND team.
Family Support Worker
Individual children or whole families can be referred for family support. The referral is made online. Parents can do this themselves or, ask for help at school and a member of staff can do the referral with your consent.
Once the referral has been accepted you will be allocated a family support worker dependent on capacity who will make every effort to support you and your child both in school and at home.
Operation Encompass
We are an Operation Encompass school which means that if the police have been called out to an address where children reside, school will be informed of that call out. This allows schools to offer support to families affected by Domestic Abuse.
Read more on our Operation Encompass page.
More Help
Any parent can request support from Birmingham City Council by completing a family connect form which can be found on the page below, and then select Family Connect Form – Self Identification:
You can also contact the Family Hub to request support. Below are the details for the Erdington hubs:
Erdington Hub
Lakeside Children’s Centre, Lakes Road, Erdington, B23 7UH
Email: erdington@spurgeons.org
Phone: 0121 752 1970
Erdington Satellite
Castle Vale Children’s Centre, Yatesbury Avenue, Castle Vale, B35 6DU
Email: erdington@spurgeons.org
Phone: 0121 752 1970
The Children’s Centres have lots of community classes and activities which are open to the majority of people within the local area. Specially trained professionals are able to answer queries or signpost to other agencies that may be best placed to offer support.
There is also a list of useful websites which can be found here which may be able to also offer support: