The Targeted Early Help service covers a number of services, aiming to ensure that children and families can access a range of effective early help so that children are safe and families get support at the earliest opportunity. Services include three family hubs for families seeking advice, support and programme delivery. The family hubs are supported by family navigators, who provide information and support to families, as well holding them during transition into new community services. The delivery of parenting programmes has been designed to increase parental confidence and skills, supporting a range families with a range of issues.

The Targeted Early Help service through its Baby Intervention and Targeted teams undertake early help assessments and can offer focused early help support for an initial period of up to 16 weeks support for families experiencing issues such as neglect, domestic abuse and parental mental health. Rapid Response offers intensive support for up to 30 days where needs are urgent. Eligibility for the service is set out in our Continuum of Need document.

The MASH is the single point of contact for any professional or member of the public who has safeguarding concerns about a child. The purpose of the MASH is to ensure that concerns are understood in full, and that decisions about risk and support are made quickly and collaboratively.  When a concern is received, the MASH gathers and analyses information from a range of partner agencies to build a clear picture of the child’s circumstances. The MASH then recommends the most appropriate action to safeguard the child and promote their welfare.  The service brings together key safeguarding partners in Barking and Dagenham, including children’s social care, health, police, education, probation and other relevant agencies. 

In early 2026, the Targeted Early Help Advisory Team joined the service. This team acts as the main ‘front door’ for children and families who may benefit from targeted early help support. They provide advice, guidance and triage to ensure families receive the right help at the right time.

Eligibility for early help and statutory intervention is set out in our Continuum of Need document, which guides professionals in identifying the most appropriate level of support for each child.

The team supports families where there are children (or an unborn baby) and the parent or carer has immigration-related “NRPF” restrictions (so they can’t access most welfare benefits, social housing, or asylum support) and—without support—would be destitute. The team arranges and reviews interim support to prevent destitution, such as accommodation and/or subsistence/financial support.

The Assessment and Intervention service supports children deemed by the MASH to have met the need for a social care intervention. The service is responsible for undertaking Child and Family Assessments under Section 17 of the Children’s Act (1989), as well as undertaking Section 47 Child Protection Investigations.

The service works with children and their families only for a short period of time, to allow an assessment to be completed and a plan to be formulated from the identified needs. Where there is a need for ongoing social work involvement those children with a child in need or child protection plan will transfer to Family Support and Safeguarding Service or other relevant service. The Assessment team also work with a group of children who have recently come into care. 

Where the assessment concludes that statutory safeguarding thresholds are not met, but additional support would benefit the child and family, cases will be stepped down to Early Help services to provide a coordinated, preventative response that addresses emerging needs and reduces the likelihood of escalation.

In circumstances where no safeguarding concerns are identified, the service provides advice, guidance, and signposting to appropriate universal and partner agencies, enabling families to access support through health, education, community, or voluntary-sector services without unnecessary statutory intervention.

Eligibility for the service is set out within the Continuum of Need document, ensuring that children and families receive the right level of support at the right time.

The aim of the Family Support and Safeguarding Service is to ensure that children are safe and being well cared for within their families (where possible).  The service accepts referrals from the Assessment and Intervention team following the completion of a single assessment, as well as from other local authorities if a family known to them moves into our borough and needs ongoing support.

Social Workers work with children in need and children with a child protection plan, and with children in care who may be subject to pre-proceedings and Section 20. The service will hold cases until full care orders are achieved, or a long-term plan is agreed - at which point they transfer to the Corporate Parenting service. Where interventions result in a child being safe and being well cared for within their own family, the service steps across to Tier 2 services or closes their involvement.  Eligibility for the service is set out in our Continuum of Need document.

The Corporate Parenting and Permanence service supports children in care and care leavers.

Corporate parenting teams support children in long-term care under care orders or S20 and includes unaccompanied minors.  There are three social work teams who work with children until the age of 18.  There are also three Leaving Care teams, staffed by Leaving Care Advisors who work with care experienced young people aged 18-25. The service also includes dedicated roles in relation to mental and emotional wellbeing, participation, and education, employment and training. 

Permanence teams consist of two fostering teams who undertake all of the recruitment of foster carers and the supervising social work support role post approval.  They also support all long-term approved kinship foster carers.

In addition, there is a Kinship and Adoption team who work with Adopt London East (ALE) Regional Adoption Agency to progress plans for children whose care plan is adoption.  The RAA supports adoption across Barking and Dagenham, Havering, Tower Hamlets and Newham.  The Kinship and Adoption team also facilitates all Special Guardianship assessments and post- order support and provides interim supervising social work support to Reg 24 carers pending successful Special Guardianship assessments to provide continuity.  They also undertake all private fostering work.

The service supports children with disabilities and their families and carers with a range of needs.  The Portage team provide early help through dedicated support to families and children aged 0-5 with a new diagnosis. The Children with Disabilities Hub provides information, advice, activities and support to children and families in one accessible location. 

The specialist social work team supports those children where there are concerns around safeguarding, or where parents are struggling with parenting, supporting children to remain living safely with their families where possible.  The service supports children with disabilities who are both new into care and those who have full care orders as well as children in 52‑week placements under Section 20.  Young people are supported to prepare for adulthood and to transition to adult social care where needed.  Eligibility for the service is set out in the ‘Eligibility Criteria for the Children with Disabilities Teams’.

The Adolescent and Youth Justice service supports vulnerable young people at risk of exploitation, harm and those in contact with the youth justice system. The adolescent teams and youth justice teams operate as one service with a strong focus on contextual safeguarding. 

The adolescent team works with missing children and those at risk of child sexual exploitation, radicalisation, county lines, criminal exploitation, trafficking and modern slavery.  The pathway into the team is via the MASH, and the Adolescent Threshold document outlines the areas of concern where thresholds need to be met for allocation.  The team also support children in care in their caseloads and keep children longer term to ensure continuity of relationships given the complexities that come with exploitation and risk outside the home.

The youth justice team is multi agency, including practitioners from CAMHS, speech and language, police, youth services and education. They work with children that are referred by the police for out of court disposals or the criminal courts for those sentenced to community or custodial orders.

The YARM is the early intervention offer across the service for children that are at risk of being exploited or involved in criminality and receive referrals directly from the schools or other professionals working with children.

The service also oversees the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) devolved decision making panel with regard to trafficking and modern day slavery.

The Specialist Intervention Service (SIS) works with children and families with complex and multiple needs, or who are on the edge of care, by delivering targeted interventions of support to complement and support social work and inform decision making for children.  Eligibility for the service is set out in our Continuum of Need document.

The service delivers a collaborative multi-disciplinary response including from

• Family Group Conference Team, who also offer mediation (as part of the FGC process) and Restorative Intervention.
• Lifelong Links Team, reconnecting young people with positive people in their lives
• Therapy Team, providing play and creative therapy to children, young people and their families. The Team also offer professional consultation to practitioners.
• Hidden Harm – offering interventions to children and young people whose lives have been impacted by parental substance misuse.
• Family Support Work Team, providing intensive support for children who are at the threshold of child protection, have child protection plan or who are on the edge of care, or who are returning home.
• Family Time Contact Team, offering child focused contact between children and their families
• Volunteer coordinator, enabling volunteer support for children, young people and their families.

The service responds to families by offering a bespoke package of support, delivered in a creative and relational manner. The analysis of the work helps inform decision-making with and for families by social work teams. The interventions provided are complementary to the casework, with ultimate responsibility for the case resting with the allocated caseworker.

The CARES Academy acts as a central hub for practice improvement, bringing together training, quality assurance and learning from audit and inspection to embed the CARES practice model, strengthen standards and support a confident, stable and high performing workforce.

The service is responsible for providing independent review, improvement and challenge on the quality of practice delivered to children and families. The service operates independently of operational social work teams to ensure robust scrutiny, objective oversight and credible assurance of practice. The Head of Service is the nominated Principal Social Worker.

The service includes:

• Quality Assurance Team – leading audit, multi-agency review and performance activity to understand the quality and impact of practice, driving a continuous cycle of learning, challenge and improvement
• Child Protection Chairs – providing independent oversight, advice and challenge, and chairing Child Protection Conferences to ensure effective safeguarding planning
• Independent Reviewing Officers (IROs) – providing independent oversight of care planning for children in care, ensuring plans are effective and that children’s voices are heard and acted upon
• Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) – overseeing and advising on allegations and concerns against professionals and volunteers working with children, ensuring appropriate safeguarding responses
• Workforce Lead – leading workforce strategy, recruitment, retention, learning and development, including ASYE and early career pathways, and embedding the CARES practice model.
• Education Safeguarding Lead – advising and supporting schools, partners and multi-agency safeguarding arrangements
• Safe and Together Coordinator – leading the implementation of the Safe and Together model across Children’s Services, strengthening practice in responding to domestic abuse.

The service works closely with the safeguarding partnership and wider partners to deliver a coordinated and robust approach to quality assurance, including multi-agency audit, learning from Rapid Reviews and Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews, and driving continuous improvement across the system. It plays a key role in identifying themes, escalating risk, and ensuring that learning is translated into actual improvements in practice.  The service also assures senior leaders, partners and regulators of the effectiveness and impact of practice, including readiness for inspection and compliance with statutory safeguarding responsibilities.

A range of wider support enables children’s care and support to operate effectively and continuously improve. This includes:

• The Families First Partnership Programme team, situated within Children’s Care and Support, coordinates engagement activities with children, families, and professionals. By gathering these diverse insights, the team ensures stakeholder perspectives directly shape the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham’s delivery of the national, mandatory Children’s Social Care and Early Help reforms. Led by the Department for Education (DfE), this major UK initiative transforms the children's social care system by shifting the focus from reactive crisis intervention to early, preventative support. The DfE mandates full implementation of these reforms by March 2027.
• The Business Improvement team, based in children’s care and support. The team provides day-to-day statutory support to help drive performance. This includes the coordination of key meetings, business support and improvement initiatives.
• The Provider Quality and Improvement team, based in commissioning. The team monitor and support the quality of commissioned provision, including residential care.
• The Placement Finding team based in commissioning. The team work to secure high-quality, cost-effective and timely placements for looked-after children, children with disabilities and care leavers.  ​Placements include (but are not limited to) residential, independent foster care, semi-independent, secure and child and parent assessment placements.​
• The Children’s Commissioning team, based in the commissioning service. The team design services for children and families in key areas and ensure sufficient provision to meet the needs of looked after children.
• The Performance team, based in the Insights service. The team support staff and managers to understand and improve performance based on robust performance management information.
• The systems team, based in the Insights service. The team facilitate improvements on the IT systems used by children’s care and support, including Liquid Logic.
• The Head of Service Improvement and Regulation Readiness, based in the People and Resilience Directorate. Work including driving strategic improvements on key issues.
• The B&D Safeguarding Children’s Partnership team, based in the People and Resilience Directorate. The team support the multi-agency safeguarding partnership work, including the coordination of rapid reviews and child safeguarding practice reviews.