Nottinghamshire County Council wants to hear from people as part of this year’s Budget Consultation about a new support service for families in the county to help them in times of need.

The county council set out proposals in November for a new Integrated Family and Child Support service to provide an effective support service for children, young people and their families.

The plans seek to bring together the knowledge and expertise within the county council’s Early Help and Children’s Social Care Family Support teams to introduce a new service which could respond to families’ needs faster, and in a more cost effective but efficient way.

Under the new approach, families would be able to explain their situation to a professional support worker once, who would be their key person throughout the process that they need support, providing continuity and consistency for each family.

The county council is holding an online consultation as well as specific consultation groups for service users to seek people’s views from across the county and is reminding people they have until January 16 to provide their comments, views and ideas.

Councillor Kate Foale, Vice-Chairman of Nottinghamshire County Council’s Children’s and Young People’s Services Committee, said: “Our Early Help and Children’s Social Care Family Support Teams provide very important and supportive services to many people across the county and we think that by joining these teams together it will provide an opportunity to provide an even better service for families.

“A single team would bring together best practice and skilled practitioners around early help and family interventions and could be tailored more closely to the needs of individual families.”

It is anticipated that all team members would be based within three local area teams across the county making them closer to the communities they are working with and key partners, such as those in health and education, providing a platform for more partnership initiatives in local areas in the future.

It is anticipated the proposals could also deliver the county council around £1m in savings by 2018 and would be an example of Doing Things Differently where the authority must find ways to deliver services in more innovative and cost effective ways due to challenging central Government cuts to local authority budgets.

Following the consultation period, recommendations will go to the county council’s Children and Young People’s Committee for discussion. Find out more and have your say at: http://www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/thecouncil/democracy/have-your-say/consultations/?entryid141=469366