Get help for your family

How you can find help for you and your family

Our Family Information Service can help you with online information such as:

• finding childcare
• information about childcare funding
• finding activities, clubs, events and self-help groups on our Family Information Directory
• applying for free school meals
• advice on where to find help if you're concerned about your child's behaviour or progress

Support for families of children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND)

How you can get help from elsewhere

Sometimes you may feel you need a bit more help and support. Our locality family support can help with this.

Children's Centres and coronavirus

All Dorset Children's Centres are closed.

We're still available to offer support to you and your family. Contact us through your local family support team.

If you're worried about the immediate safety of a child or young person contact our Children's Advice and Duty Service:

Foodbanks in Dorset

Find your local foodbanks on our Family Information Directory.

Children's Centre nurseries

Our 2 Children's Centre nurseries are open: 

• Blandford Children's Centre Nursery
• Shaftesbury Children's Centre Nursery

Family support in your locality

To improve the services we provide to all children, young people and families we're moving more of our teams into local areas. That way we'll be working more closely together to support all families.

We are committed to working in our communities and with our partner agencies such as schools and health services to better support children, young people and families.

There will continue to be 6 areas which will now be known as localities, previously called Family Partnership Zones (FPZs).

Where our localities are

Our services to help families are based in:

• Chesil
• Dorchester
• East Dorset
• North Dorset
• Purbeck
• West Dorset

Which services are based in our localities

Many services are based in each locality, including:

• early help
• children's social care
• educational psychology
• special educational needs and disability (SEND)
• family workers
• youth workers
• social workers
• specialist teachers
• inclusion support
• activity and parent workers
• portage education service
• The Virtual School

You can still contact ChAD to speak to a social worker or raise a concern about a child.

Contact your local family support team

If you think you might need help, contact your locality team:

Localities on a map of Dorset

See a map of our localities:

SEND workers within each locality

Each locality will have its own SEND team of professionals led by a SEND team manager, with a family worker and provision lead.

The SEND team supporting you will be based on where you live, not where your child goes to school.

The new SEND teams will include family support workers and educational psychologists all working together.

SEND provision lead role duties

The SEND provision lead role used to be called the SEND planning coordinator.

SEND provision leads:

• carry out education, health and care (EHC) plan needs assessments
• write the EHC plan once everyone who needs to has agreed on it
• oversee the EHC plan review process, including amendments to it or plans to cease (stop) it
• consult with schools when a child or young person needs a change of placement
• work with other agencies and educational settings to develop the provision described in the EHC plan to make sure it's of a good quality

A SEND provision lead can support a child or young person throughout the time they have an EHC plan, even if they move to another school or educational setting. This means we can keep consistency for your child and family. 

SEND family worker duties

This role supports our commitment to providing a graduated approach to support children and young people with SEND. 

SEND family workers:

• are a bridge between home and school where it's needed
• work alongside families and other professionals in the locality team
• carry out whole family assessments
• work from the early years right through to transition to adulthood
• work directly with children and parents to address issues
• help children and families develop coping strategies
• develop, deliver and monitor plans in partnership with other professionals
• take an agile, person-centred approach to enable children to meet their expected outcomes
• make sure everyone uses strategies that work for the child or young person whether they're at home or at school

SEND team manager

The SEND team manager oversees the SEND provision lead and SEND family workers.

Dorset Families Matter

Dorset Families Matter is a partnership programme. We set this programme up in 2012 to deliver the government's Troubled Families agenda. Through the programme we aim to support families who experience many complex challenges to help them improve their well-being.  This support comes from professionals already working with eligible families. 

Whole-family working is central to this. All the principles and ways of working that have been tested out by Dorset Families Matter have now been incorporated into the work of the Family Partnership Zones across Dorset. 

Professionals supporting families

Professionals: find out about early help in Dorset.

Email dorsetfamiliesmatter@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk if you're a professional supporting families to find more information.