About Front Door for Families

How the service works and how we support children, young people and families.

All enquiries and referrals for both Social Care and Family Hubs now come through our single front door.

The service is made up of professionals with different areas of expertise who work together to assess, decide and coordinate how best to support children, young people and their families where there are concerns.

Multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH)

The Front Door for Families service includes the multi-agency safeguarding hub which brings together key agencies to:

  • assess risk
  • share information
  • make decisions jointly about the best way to safeguard and meet the needs of vulnerable children and families. 

The Front Door for Families is also the single point of contact for referrals to the Family Hub service.

The key agencies that make up MASH are:

  • Referral Officers who receive your calls, e-mails and online notifications. They provide information, advice and guidance
  • Social Workers who assess the needs or concerns you’ve raised about a child or young person
  • Police Officers who assess information and notifications about children and young people who come to their attention
  • Specialist Nurses for Safeguarding Children who gather health information and assess the risk and impact on the children’s development and well-being
  • Education Safeguarding Officers who advise schools where there are safeguarding needs identified for a child
  • Probation Service who share and analyse information they hold where there is a safeguarding concern
  • Adult Services Social Worker
  • Family Coaches   
  • Qualified Early Help specialists from the family hubs who triage contacts that meet the threshold for targeted Early Help and Parenting Support and will assist partner agencies in setting up Team Around the Family meetings and plans
  • Social Workers who monitor private fostering arrangements 

How the service works

You should contact Front Door For Families if:

  • you're concerned about the needs of children or families
  • a family needs support

The online Brighton & Hove Family Help Right Support at the Right Time Framework outlines in full the levels of need and whether the concerns that you have are appropriate for referral in to the Front Door for Families.

Find out more about how we make decisions.

When Front Door For Families is contacted about a concern or a request for help we consider the contact on the day it's received and then make a decision about the outcome within 72 hours. 

This can be for:

  • a social work intervention
  • a private fostering assessment
  • early help support from the family hubs

Alternatively, we log the information with no further action.

Early Help support may include:

  • advice and information
  • parenting support
  • care coordination
  • a family coach

Make a referral or recommendation for early help

Use our refer a child or family to Front Door for Families form if you want to tell us about a child you are worried about, or need advice.

Other ways to contact us

To contact us:

Outside our working hours phone the Emergency Duty Service on 01273 335 905 or 01273 335 906.