Early Help Directory & Links
This section contains useful contacts for advice and support for both yourself and your child..
Community Support
Food banks, general advice and support, befriending service, financial and debt advice along with support with a range of issues affecting families in the community:
- Saint Vincent de Paul offers various family support including food donations their website
- Applying for a free school meal please contact the school office. To check eligibility please click this link
- Birmingham Children’s Partnership Community Hub 0121 752 1860
- Compass Support 0121 748 8111 or visit their website
For Compass Family support and Adult Support information please see pdf files below. - St James Church Hope Helpline 07483 829891
- Father Hudson's Maryvale project offer support for elderly and disabled people, their website
- Our Place call helpline 0121 354 4080
- Food Cycle offer meals and a friendly conversation for adults, their website
- Trussell Trust offer links to various foodbanks that are available, their website.
Physical and Mental Health
Advice and support for health related issues including mental health and well-being:
- NHS helpline call 111 or visit their website
- Department for Education coronavirus helpline 0800 046 8687
- Samaritans call helpline 116 123 or visit their website
- MIND for better mental health helpline 0300 123 3393 or visit their website
- Child and adolescent mental health contact PAUSE helpline 0300 300 0099
Helplines
A list of helplines which offer advice and support on a range of issues affecting children and families:
- Worried about the safety of a child? Contact The Children’s Advice and Support Service helpline 0121 303 1888 out of hours 0121 675 4806
- CHILDLINE call 0800 1111 or visit their website
- NSPCC 0808 800 5000 or visit their website
- TWR The Waiting Room has a wide range of community support services visit their website
Bereavement, Loss and Grief
Support for those coping with the loss of a loved one:
- Cruse Bereavement Care helpline call 0121 687 8010
- Winston’s Wish helpline call 08088 020 021 or visit their website
Early Help Directory
The documents below have contact numbers, emails and web addresses for Early Help for children and families across the city. Even though these were initially produced as a result of Covid-19, they are useful resources in general:
Family Connect
To get support for a child or your family you can complete the self referral form using this link RMM - Public Form (ecdesk.org)
More Useful Wellbeing Links
- NHS: Every Mind Matters – Expert advice and practical tips to help you look after your mental health and wellbeing.
- Action for Children – Protecting and supporting children and young people, providing practical and emotional care and support, ensuring their voices are heard, and campaigning to bring lasting improvements to their lives.
- Young Minds – A Parents’ Helpline available to offer advice to parents and carers worried about a child or young person under 25.
- Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families – Providing a range of specialist types for support for children, young people and families, seeing them at the Centre, in schools and other settings.
We use the World Health Organisation’s definition of mental health and wellbeing – ‘a state of well-being in which every individual realises his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community’.
