Family First is a local authority resource which was established in 2015 to provide a little bit of help to families with children aged 0-11. There are 5 workers who work across the authority to ensure the service is available to all families.

The Family First Team was established to prevent families from becoming involved in statutory services by providing hands on support, advice and interventions.

Their key tasks include:

• Providing practical aid, assistance and guidance to children or families, individually or in groups, in both planned and unplanned situations;
• Providing information to families on relevant services and community groups and facilitating their independent access to such;
• Working with families to share key knowledge and skills on attachment, parenting, wellbeing, nurture and problem solving;
• Building the capacity of families to independently find solutions to their concerns and issues (e.g. financial worries, sleep counselling, behaviour management, housing situations).
• Empowering families to independently manage situations which may arise in the future, without the need for service input;

With ‘a little bit of help’ the wellbeing of families in our communities have increased. This allows families to function positively allowing children to attain and families to access and contribute to their communities.

The service is growing each year and this is evident in the rise in self-referrals and demonstrates the accessibility of the service to families within their community. Support with parenting continues to be the main issue for families seeking a little bit of help.