Family Mentoring and Befriending Service

Herefordshire Council's overarching vision for looked after children is the same as for all Herefordshire's children and young people - that we keep them safe and give them a great start in life. Early identification and prevention are national priorities and specific funding has been identified to support local development of services for families. Evidence shows that intervening early and supporting families to change their behaviour will have a major impact on the quality of lives in communities and enable funding to be redirected from expensive responses to crime anti- social behaviour and poor parenting. Mentoring and befriending are part of a range of early intervention services that make up the Early Help Strategy in Herefordshire. Early Help means providing help for children and families as soon as problems start to emerge or when there is a strong likelihood that problems will emerge in the future. Herefordshire's Early Help is therefore about providing services at the right time to meet family's needs and to keep them in control of resolving their issues and problems, to reinforce and develop the family's own skills to determine their future, reducing poor outcomes and inequalities. Herefordshire believes that an investment in early intervention is vital across its services for children and families and that all of our Service Providers should adopt this proactive approach. The early help philosophy will underpin operational elements of the service and ensure that the whole workforce will become equipped to meet the needs of families as they become apparent.