Early Support - Cefnogi Cymru

Early Support is a mechanism for achieving better coordinated, family focused services for
young disabled children and their families, to support the Welsh Assembly Government's aim to ensure that young children who are disabled or have complex health needs receive:

• Coordinated services
• High quality support and information
• Child and family-centred approaches
• Support that enable them and their families to live ordinary lives.

Early Support's approach and ways of working are becoming standard features of support
for families across Wales. Services supporting disabled children up to the age of 5 and their families are expected to use the Early Support approach and materials to deliver high quality services. Early Support currently has a team of consultants working in local authority areas to help establish Early Support.

Early Support puts the needs of families first, ensuring that all services are well coordinated and responsive to need. Early Support aims to ensure that both parents and the professionals supporting them are better informed about the family's needs and how these can best be met.

Early Support materials are available for use by both families and professionals. The materials include:

• A family pack that includes a family file which brings together all the relevant information about a child's needs and services supporting the family.
• Information booklets for families about particular conditions and disabilities.
• Four sets of developmental materials for children with a range of conditions and disabilities.
• A tool to help professionals' evaluate the quality of services provided and help plan improvements.

Early Support has developed a range of training programmes and training is available for parents and carers, practitioners, and managers.

For more information the Early Support website
www.earlysupportwales.org.uk
Copies of all Early Support materials can be downloaded at
www.earlysupportwales.org.uk/allmaterials

For general enquiries contact:

Marcia Jones - Early Support Administrator on 029 2034 2434 or
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Marcia will not be able to answer specific service based questions, and these should be addressed to local service providers.