The Early Intervention and Youth Support Service

The Early Intervention Family Support Service offer early support for children, young people and their families and aim to prevent the need for longer term and more costly and complex intervention. Within the team we have specialisms such as prevention and education around knife crime and exploitation and we support families affected by domestic abuse.

What we do? 

The team assist professionals to support children, young people and their families offering advice and guidance, signposting to services & direct support work in the home, at school/nursery or in the community.  

The Early Intervention Service is made up of 4 strands of work: 

Targeted Youth Team 

The Support and intervention offered to children and young people by our Targeted Youth Team includes; 1:1 intervention on a range of topics (inc. online safety, sexual health, healthy and unhealthy relationships, wellbeing, protective behaviours, anti-social behaviours & criminality, exploitation, confidence and self-esteem); group work in schools (small groups work weekly over the course of a term or half term to address, discuss and work through a range of topics); drop-down days (1 day targeted workshops in schools with an entire year group or specific cohort of student).  

Domestic Abuse Support Team

Support and intervention offered to victims by our Practitioners includes; telephone check ins; Domestic Abuse Stalking and Harassment assessments (DASH) with victims (Safety planning; advice and guidance in relation to next steps; non-molestation orders, harassment warnings, signposting to legal services); 1:1 support at home or in the community (for up to 12 weeks); advice (re: managing parental conflict, contact arrangements and practical parenting strategies); free online support workshops 

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Family Support Team

The support and intervention offered to families by the ACE support team includes; up to 12 weeks holistic family support delivered directly in the home; parenting advice and strategies; advocacy and support at meetings or appointments; intervention to help with routines & boundaries in the home, finances, housing, wellbeing, social isolation, poor school attendance, access to services; free online parenting workshops; free ACEs Training to schools and partners.  

 Youth Violence Intervention Unit (YVIU)/ Missing Persons Unit (MPU) Support Team

The support and intervention offered to young people by our ACE – Community Initiative to Reduce Violence (CIRV) Support Team includes; conducting home visits to identified young people to offer support and services to help move them away from violent crime; working with young people to help them understand the risks of exploitation and the consequence of carrying a weapon; weekly school drop-in sessions alongside the Youth Offending Service (YOS) to offer advice and guidance to young people who might be at risk of becoming involved in crime, Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB), gangs or knife crime; School Knife Crime assemblies in partnership with local policing teams & other agencies; being available for custody visits to young people to offer support and intervention.  

pie chart showing where the Early Intervention and Youth Services Teams have been working. 40.4% Northampton. 6.5% South Northants. 4.3% Daventry. 14.1% Wellingborough. 7.4% East Northants. 16.7% Kettering. 10.6% Corby. Data from 1st January to 31st December 2023
64.8% DA (Domestic Abuse) - 12 week support to children and families, DASH assessments, advice and guidance and onward referrals to specialist agencies. 16.9% Youth Violence Intervention Unit/ Missing Persons Unit - support for young people to reduce the risks of child exploitation and knife crime. MPU - visiting young people who have had 3 missing episodes or less to identify needs of support to reduce further missing episodes. 10.3% locality - 12 week holistic support to children and families directly in the home and community. 8& Youth - provide groupwork in schools and 1:! interventions on a range of topics with young people. Data from 1st January to 31st December 2023

The Team 

Please see our organisational structure for more details about who makes up our team 

How to access this service 

If you are a professional and looking for more information and details of how these services can be accessed please click here.

If you are a parent/ carer, family member or young person looking for more information about how the Early intervention and youth work team can support you, please click here.

to download our latest annual report and impact statement, please click here