I’m incredibly proud to introduce Dorset’s Early Help Strategy for 2026 to 2029. Since joining Dorset Council in 2022, I’ve been inspired every day by the passion and commitment of our teams, partners, and communities. Together, we share a simple but powerful goal: to make Dorset the best place to be a child and the best place to raise a family.
This strategy is all about working together to support families early, before challenges grow. It’s built on the belief that families are the experts in their own lives, and that the best outcomes happen when we listen, build trust, and work alongside them. Whether it’s a parent needing advice, a young person looking for support, or a whole family navigating a tough time, Early Help is here to make sure no one feels alone. This includes helping families strengthen and use their own networks of relatives and friends, ensuring support starts with those who know them best.
We’re proud to be one of the first local authorities leading the Families First for Children Pathfinder work, helping shape the future of the Families First reforms and family support across the country. And we’re fully behind the Department for Education’s national ambition to Give Every Child the Best Start in Life, this supports the role of Best Start Family Hubs and sets a vision that aims for 75% of children to reach a good level of development by the end of reception by 2028. That’s a goal we share wholeheartedly in Dorset. This ambition is embedded in Dorset’s Best Start Local Plan (2025 to 2029), which sets out how we will achieve these outcomes through integrated health, education, and family support.
We also know that more national changes are coming, including changes to how we support children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). While the details are still developing, one thing is clear: Early Help will remain at the heart of how we support children with SEND and their families - early, together, and with care.
Thank you to all the children, young people, families, and practitioners who helped shape this strategy. Your voices are at the heart of everything we do. I look forward to continuing this journey with you because when we support families early, we give every child the best chance to thrive.
Dorset has a strong culture of partnership working, led by the Dorset Strategic Alliance for Children and Young People - a multi-agency group uniting leaders from the council, police, health, fire and rescue, education, and the voluntary and community sectors. Together, they aim to shape services that improve outcomes for children and young people.
Dorset Strategic Alliance for Children and Young People vision: “Dorset to be the best place to be a child, where communities thrive, and families are supported to be the best they can be.”
To achieve this, the Alliance has identified 7 priorities for all children to:
A strong Early Help system is essential to achieving our vision. This strategy represents our shared commitment to providing early, effective support through collaboration across partners. Developed with input from a wide range of stakeholders, it highlights the importance of a joined-up, multi-agency approach that responds to the diverse needs of children and families.
At the heart of this vision is the role of family networks. We will actively help families strengthen and mobilise their own networks of relatives, friends, and community connections - building resilience and reducing reliance on formal services wherever possible.
By working together, we can deliver timely, tailored support that makes a real difference. This strategy is a call to action for continued partnership, innovation, and dedication to improving the lives of Dorset’s children, young people, and families.
Our Early Help Strategy works alongside Dorset’s Best Start Local Plan to ensure every child has the strongest foundations for life, from conception to age 5.
Dorset Council officially became a Rights Respecting Council on 15 May 2025 and is the first unitary authority in the country to make such a commitment, placing children’s rights at the heart of local decision making and service design. Dorset is proud to be a Rights Respecting Council, committed to upholding the principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in all aspects of our work with children, young people, and families. This strategy reflects our belief that every child has the right to be safe, heard, and supported to thrive. By embedding a rights-based approach across our Early Help system, we ensure that services are not only responsive to need but also grounded in dignity, equity, and participation.
Early help is a coordinated system of support for children and families, designed to build resilience, improve outcomes, and prevent issues from becoming more serious. It’s not a single service, but a collective approach delivered by local authorities and partners.
Support can begin before birth and continue throughout childhood. It’s available to families with emerging or multiple needs, or those ending their involvement with social care. Early Help also includes proactive support such as education and programmes that equip parents and carers with the knowledge and skills to support their children’s development and wellbeing from the outset. Early help is always voluntary and based on consent.
This strategy focuses on child and family’s needs before they are identified as requiring support under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989, ensuring they receive the support they need early and effectively.
Early help delivers long-term benefits for children, families, and communities. It starts before birth, supporting babies’ emotional wellbeing and early relationships from pregnancy onwards. It improves health, wellbeing, and life chances by addressing issues early and building on strengths. It also reduces the need for more intensive, costly interventions later on.
Early help supports 4 key areas of child development:
In addition to promoting development, early help tackles four critical threats to children’s wellbeing:
Early help is everyone’s business. By working together, sharing knowledge, skills, and resources, we can ensure children and their families receive the right support at the right time. This includes empowering families to draw on their own networks of relatives, friends, and community connections as a first layer of support. We will actively promote Family Network meetings and peer support as part of this shared responsibility. This strategy is rooted in the principles of Working Together to Safeguard Children (2023) and reflects our collective commitment to ensuring every child in Dorset thrives.
The Dorset Council area has a population of approximately 384,809 people. Around 30% of residents are aged 65 or older, compared with 19% nationally, and 6.1% of the population are from the global majority.
There are 90,535 children and young people aged 0 to 25, making up 24% of the total population. The area has low birth rates, and historically many young working‑age adults leave the area.
There are 11 neighbourhoods within the top 20% most deprived nationally, with 10 of these located in Weymouth and Portland.
Twenty‑five percent of children live in poverty. In rural areas, isolation contributes to difficulties accessing housing, transport and essential services.
Crime levels are low, and the number of young people entering the criminal justice system for the first time is also low.
Employment levels are high, but earnings remain below the national average.
House prices are high, creating affordability challenges for young people and key workers.
There are 46,854 school‑age children from Reception to Year 14. Twelve percent of these pupils are from the global majority.
Disadvantaged pupils continue to have poorer outcomes at Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4, and the gap between them and their peers remains wider than desired.
Dorset has 158 schools, including academies, maintained schools and free schools. Overall, 84% of schools are rated good or outstanding. Among academies, 83% are rated good or outstanding, compared with 86% of maintained schools.
As of March 2025, there are 2,469 children receiving Family Help, including 1,122 children in need. There are 4,460 Education, Health and Care Plans in place. In addition, there are 280 children on child protection plans, 435 children in care, including 41 unaccompanied asylum‑seeking children and approximately 300 active care leavers.
Dorset has a well-established Early Help system that makes a real difference to children and families.
Our approach is built on 4 key principles:
Dorset’s Best Start Family Hubs and Early Support Pathway are well positioned to deliver the ambitions of the national Best Start Family Service and are integral to delivering the priorities set out in Dorset’s Best Start Local Plan, including raising Good Level of Development (GLD) attainment and improving health outcomes. We are committed to ensuring that every child has the best start in life, with targeted support during the first 1,001 days when the foundations for lifelong health and development are laid.
Dorset’s Early Help system adapts to the changing needs of families, as outlined in the Dorset Safeguarding Partnership Continuum of Need.
These include schools, GPs, early years settings, health services, housing, and community organisations. They are available to all families and meet most children’s needs through everyday support.
When more coordination is needed, a trusted practitioner, such as a health visitor, acts as a lead to help families access local services like parenting groups or community activities and linking the family with their extended family and friends network. This includes prioritising the activation of family networks through Family Network Meetings and informal support, ensuring these connections are embedded in every plan.
For more complex or persistent challenges, support is accessed through the Family Support and Advice Line and delivered by Family Help Lead Practitioners. They’ll carry out a Child and Family Assessment to understand the needs of the family and make sure the right support is put in place.
This support includes:
A diagram with 2 large overlapping circles representing the Early Help System on the left and the Family Help Service on the right.
Inside the left circle, there are 2 labelled boxes:
Inside the overlapping centre area, there is one box: Targeted Early Help (peach‑coloured box)
Inside the right circle, there are 2 boxes:
Beneath the left circle is the label Early Help System, and beneath the right circle is Family Help Service. Along the bottom of the diagram is a long horizontal double‑headed arrow labelled Family Led Decision Making, spanning the full width of both circles.
In 2024, Dorset launched Family Help Teams as part of the national Families First for Children Pathfinder. This reform, aligned with Stable Homes, Built on Love (DfE, 2023), integrates Targeted Early Help and Child in Need support into a single, seamless service.
Key features of Family Help:
Family Help Teams include family workers, social workers, youth workers, early years advisors, inclusion specialists, SEND leads, activity and parenting workers.
Together, they:
At the heart of Dorset’s approach is family-led decision-making. Families are active participants in shaping their support, leading to stronger engagement, better outcomes, and lasting change. Family Network Meetings are accessed through Dorset Family Matters and our partnership with Daybreak.
Dorset’s model focuses on responding to need, not rigid thresholds. Services work together across levels of support, ensuring continuity and avoiding unnecessary handovers. For example, children receiving safeguarding support can still access universal services.
The Dorset Safeguarding Partnership has updated the Continuum of Need to guide practitioners in delivering the right support at the right time.
A robust Early Help system relies on a well-coordinated network of services and practitioners. In Dorset, this infrastructure enables early identification of needs, timely intervention, and tailored support, empowering families and preventing escalation.
Place-based working means putting families and communities at the centre of everything we do. By making sure support is shaped around local needs and delivered by people who know the area best, we can offer help that feels more personal, timely, and effective.
This diagram shows interconnected services supporting children and families in Dorset.
At the top, text reads: "This infrastructure reflects our collective commitment to delivering effective, accessible, and timely support for children and families across Dorset."
A central honeycomb of labelled service blocks includes:
Around the diagram are illustrations of people reading, writing, playing, or interacting. The background is light, and the colours are mainly blues, purples, and greens.
The Early Support Pathway provides timely, coordinated support to children, young people, and families through a conversational, relationship-based approach. This strategy prioritises listening, trust-building, and collaborative dialogue over formal thresholds, ensuring families feel heard, respected, and empowered.
Our approach is underpinned by the following principles:
Step 1: Initial conversation
A trusted practitioner initiates a relaxed, open conversation with the family to explore their situation, strengths, and concerns.
Step 2: Shared understanding
Together, they identify what’s going well, what could be improved, what are their goals and what support might help them
Step 3: Coordinated support
If needed, the practitioner brings together relevant services through Team Around the Family (TAF) discussions.
Step 4: Ongoing dialogue and review
Support is reviewed regularly through continued conversations, adapting as needed.
Effective delivery of the pathway relies on clear roles and collaborative working:
Expected outcomes:
To deliver our vision for Early Help in Dorset, that will improve child and family outcomes, 4 core priority areas for action have been identified:
The strengthening of families and communities.
Empower families to access support early and build long-term resilience.
The delivery of targeted and integrated support.
Timely, proportionate interventions that prevent escalation.
Having a confident and skilled workforce across the Early Help system.
A confident, skilled workforce underpinned by shared values and best practice.
The strengthening of Leadership and shared accountability for outcomes across the Early Help System.
To deliver against the 4 priority areas for action, 3 key next steps have been identified.
These are:
Governance of the Early Help Strategy in Dorset will be overseen by the Strategic Alliance Sub-Group for Local Family Help, which brings together key partners from across the children’s services system. This group will provide strategic leadership, drive accountability, and ensure that the Early Help priorities are embedded across all agencies. The sub-group will monitor progress against agreed outcomes and KPIs, using data dashboards, partner evaluations, and family feedback to inform continuous improvement. It will also play a key role in aligning resources, identifying system-wide challenges, and championing co-production with children, young people, and families. Regular reporting to the wider Strategic Alliance Board will ensure transparency and shared ownership of the strategy’s impact.
Terms of reference, membership and meeting schedules are to be established, alongside the establishment of reporting mechanisms to the Strategic Alliance Board.
The strategy will be reviewed annually, taking account of any legislative changes, national policy directives or guidance and local operating conditions.
A delivery plan for the priority action areas that is aligned with the Council Plan and the Children, Young People and Families' Plan 2023–2033, will be developed and assign responsibilities and timelines for each action together with an identified Lead Partner. Any resource requirement will be identified and where appropriate a pooled or apportioned budget across the partnership to support delivery.
A communications plan to share the strategy with all stakeholders (internal teams, partners, families, and communities) will be developed. Accessible versions of the strategy and the communications plan will be made available, for example, summary leaflet, infographic, family-friendly version. The early help delivery sub-group will host a launch event or webinar to introduce the strategy, its vision, and the priority areas for action.
This Early Help Strategy aligns closely with a range of other Dorset Council strategies and strategies of our partners, that collectively support the wellbeing and development of children, young people, and families.
These include:
Child Centred Policing: Children and Young Persons Policing Strategy 2024 to 2027
Giving every child the Best Start in Life (DFE, 2025)
Stable Homes, Built on Love (DfE, 2023)
Supporting Families – Whole Family Working: Informing Future System Reform (DfE, June 2025)
Child In Need - A Child in Need (CiN) is a legal term used in the UK (under the Children Act 1989) to describe a child who may require additional support from local authority services to achieve or maintain a reasonable standard of health or development, or to prevent significant harm.
A child is considered "in need" if:
This document is for use by all practitioners working with children and their families across Dorset. It may be seen as the ‘threshold document’ required by Working Together 2023.
The purpose of the document is to provide conversation opportunities to identify a child’s degree of need and appropriate support for children and families, ensuring this support is offered by the right agencies, at the right time and to prevent their needs escalating to a higher level. It will help identify when conversations with, including referrals to specialist or social care Children’s Social Care services, are required.
Read the full Continuum of Need document.
Dorset’s Early Help system provides flexible support that adapts to the changing needs of children and families. As needs increase or decrease, the level of help adjusts accordingly, guided by our revised Continuum of Need.
This includes:
Family Help focuses on improving outcomes for children by supporting the whole family early, helping them stay together and thrive. Delivered within communities, it brings local services together through a joined-up, multi-disciplinary approach.
Key principles include:
Specifically, it comprises:
A local center offering joined-up support for families with children (0 to19 or up to 25 with SEND). Services include parenting help, health advice, and youth activities - all in one place.
Find out more about Family Hub.
The Dorset Family Support and Advice Line offers a single point of contact for families, young people, and practitioners seeking help or guidance. It provides early advice, support, and signposting to ensure children and families receive the right help at the right time.
The Lead Practitioner’s role is to:
