The Ealing Council's Children's Services Scrutiny Panel met on 2 October 2025 to discuss the council's response to the government's national children's social care agenda, the Families First Partnership Program, and the role of the LBE SAFE teams and early intervention in supporting children at risk of entering care. The panel also agreed to the co-option of Ms Sharde Hurd as an education representative and scheduled a site visit to allow panel members to become better acquainted with the work of Children's Services.

Children at Risk of Coming into Care, Role of LBE SAFE Teams and Early Intervention

The panel discussed a report providing an update on the Early Help & Prevention Service, including the Supportive Action for Families in Ealing (SAFE) teams. The report highlighted the progress made in early intervention services for families and children, and the importance of early help in preventing more serious issues.

Helen Harding, Assistant Director Early Help & Prevention, explained that the council delivers integrated early help services aligned with community resources, most of which are locality focused. The council aims to decrease the demand for crisis services by engaging with more children and families when they first need help and support within the community, ensuring services are fairly distributed across the borough and addressing any gaps.

The SAFE service is a key part of Ealing's early help offer, delivering targeted, multi-disciplinary support to children, young people (0–18), and their families. It aims to intervene early to prevent needs from escalating and to reduce the risk of children entering care. The service works in partnership with families to identify their needs and connect them with the right services. The integrated team includes family practitioners, social workers, youth workers, counsellors, domestic abuse workers, parenting practitioners and mental health practitioners.

The SAFE service has focused on:

• Preventing children from entering care through early identification and intensive support.
• Improving family functioning by addressing issues such as parenting challenges, domestic abuse, and mental health.
• Enhancing multi-agency collaboration with services such as youth justice and the voluntary sector.
• Embedding restorative and strengths-based practice.

The SAFE+ model offers more intensive support and links families to community resources to sustain change beyond the intervention period for families with more complex needs.

Multi-agency partnerships are increasingly delivering early help, involving health, education, voluntary and community sectors, and social care. Initiatives include:

• EHAP (Early Help Assessment and Plan) Training: Promotes shared assessments and coordinated support via Team Around the Family meetings.
• Early Years Strengthening Group: Focused on partnerships coming together to explore planning, workforce development, and data insight to improve outcomes for children.
• Early Help workshops and roadshows: Strengthening awareness, access, and collaboration around early intervention services within mainstream schools and local communities.

According to the report, a strong and improved early help offer is expected to produce better outcomes for children and families and prevent more costly social care intervention.

Between April 2024 and March 2025, SAFE received 1543 referrals, a 3% increase from the previous year. Step-downs from statutory services into early help (SAFE) rose from 182 (12%) to 203 (13%), suggesting more families are being supported earlier and avoiding escalation. Conversely, step-ups from early help (SAFE) to statutory services dropped significantly from 129 in 2023/24 to 71 in 2024/25, indicating successful early intervention.

Schools and education services increased their share of SAFE referrals from 23% to 26%, while health services saw a slight decline. A 4% increase in agencies undertaking EHAPs has been noted, correlating with a decrease in referrals for targeted family support.

Initiatives to enhance early help work include:

• Moving to a model of holding family group conferences at an earlier stage, during early intervention.
• Enhancing and developing connections with the community, providing an early help presence in mainstream schools.
• Enhancing the multi-agency review of early help referrals.
• Continued focus on improving the EHAP process.

Response to the Government's National Children's Social Care Agenda and Families First Partnership Program

The panel received a report outlining the council's response to the national children's social care agenda and the expectations of the Families First Partnership Programme (FFPP) set out by the Department for Education (DfE). Joanne Dempster, Assistant Director Children's Social Care, introduced the report.

The FFPP aims to provide an operational framework to support the reform of the children's social care system on a national scale. Its principles aim to improve how the children's social care system delivers services to vulnerable children and families consistently across all local authorities. The FFPP aims to reduce the escalating numbers of children entering the care system across the country and sets out how services should be structured to provide help to families to care for their children, overcoming problems early on.

The DfE published initial guidance for the FFPP on 18 December 2024, following the policy statement Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive. This guidance outlined the ambition to rebalance children's social care towards earlier intervention, multi-agency child protection and family support reforms through the development of an integrated Family Help System without any transfer points.

In February 2025, the DfE released the 'Planning for Implementation' document, setting out the expectations of the programme for local authorities. In March, the 'Families First Partnership Guide' was published, detailing delivery expectations for safeguarding partners and describing the reforms across three main areas: Family Help, Multi-Agency Child Protection Teams (MACPTs), and Family Group Decision Making.

In June 2025, local authorities, including Ealing, began submitting Part 1 of their delivery plans to the DfE. A summary of the FFPP expectations was presented to the Ealing Safeguarding Children's Partnership and the Ealing Children and Young People's Board in late June/early July. The partnership was asked to provide nominees to become representatives for the operational and strategic leadership groups dedicated to driving forward the FFPP for Ealing.

The first Families First Partnership Programme Board launched on 30 July, bringing together members of the strategic leadership group and the operational group to set out the terms of reference and the governance for delivery of the programme in Ealing. Initial meetings began in September 2025 to agree on how the Social Care Prevention Fund will be divided to achieve implementation. The local authority is expected to engage in co-production with local services, children, and families to understand how the transformation of family help services can make a lasting impact for families with positive outcomes.

In July 2025, the DfE published an evaluation report outlining early findings from local authorities who took part in pathfinder programmes. Key themes and findings include:

• Implementation Progress: Pathfinder areas have made significant strides in setting up new service models, often involving multi-agency collaboration across police, health, education, and social care. Local authorities have used co-design approaches to ensure family voice is central to service reform.
• Practice and Culture Change: There is a strong emphasis on culture and practice transformation, including workforce engagement and training, revising local practice frameworks, and promoting non-stigmatising language and community-based service delivery.
• Governance and Delivery Models: Authorities have adopted varied rollout methods, governance structures, and data sharing protocols. The programme encourages whole system reform, integrating services from different government programmes into business-as-usual operations.
• Challenges and Learning: Common challenges include aligning thresholds and eligibility criteria, ensuring sustainable funding and workforce capacity, and navigating complex data-sharing arrangements.

Ealing is at the beginning of the implementation phase of the reforms and will continue to learn from the pathfinder authorities in the service design process. There are two London pathfinders who are leading learning events throughout September and October delivered by the London Innovation and Improvement Alliance (LIIA). Ealing partners will be encouraged to attend the learning events to stay informed of what is working across other London authorities.

Delivery of the reform programme will be funded by the Social Care Prevention Grant, which totals £1.4 million.

Panel's Work Programme

The panel reviewed and agreed to the Children's Services Scrutiny Panel Work Programme for 2025-2026. The work programme outlines the items the panel will scrutinise during the year, and can be changed as new issues are identified.

Appointment of Education Representative

The panel agreed to the co-option of Ms Sharde Hurd as an education representative on the Children's Services Scrutiny Panel in the parent governor category for the remainder of the 2025-2026 municipal year, pursuant to Paragraph 8 of Schedule A1, of the Local Government Act 2000 and pursuant to the Council's Scrutiny Procedure Rules.

Site Visit

The panel agreed to a site visit or orientation day to become better acquainted with the work of Children's Services, and this was added to the Panel's Work Programme.