The Department for Education (DfE) has announced that the ES Trust Consortium, made up of more than 50 voluntary, community and private sector organisations, has been awarded the contract to extend the Government’s Early Support initiative to young people and families with children of all ages.
Early Support approaches aim to help parents and young people to navigate and understand the system by providing information, advice and guidance relating to the particular child, young person or family’s needs and priorities. In addition, Early Support promotes the use of key working to act as a key point of contact and support.
Early support was identified in the SEN Green Paper as a key approach to meeting the needs of children, young people and families. “Early Support has been successful in the early years”, says new Early Support Director Dr Kim Bevan, “the aim now is to ensure that it informs and supports the development of an integrated model of working with disabled children and young people of all ages and their families.”
The ES Trust Consortium, led by the National Children’s Bureau, is made up of a number of high profile charities in the SEN field, including the National Autistic Society, Scope, RNIB and Sense. It also includes The Communication Trust (which itself comprises over 40 organisations), a number of city councils, private organisations, the Open University and Achievement for All (which is leading on school age children).
Highlighting the success of the Consortium’s bid, Children’s Minister Sarah Teather says that “it’s important that children, young people and their families get help and support now, from organisations they trust.”
