 the early help offer is completely wrapped around family hubs, with the health visitors and school nurses integrated. But when the funding goes these roles will disappear because there will not be the resources to sustain them. We tried to build in as much sustainability as possible, but some of those specialist elements will end. (DCS, Unitary, North East Region) Two-thirds of survey respondents said they had increased both their early help and targeted family support services. Stable Homes, Built on Love (DfE, 2023b) led to the launch of the Families First for Children pathfinder programme (initially in three local authority areas and then expanded to a further seven) funded from July 2023 to March 2025. The pathfinders have a focus on ‘family help’ that brings together child in need and targeted early help activities; multi-agency child protection teams; greater involvement of family networks in decision-making; and practical and financial support via family network support packages. Family network pilots are testing the impact of providing flexible funding to extended family networks in seven local authorities. Success breeds success in attracting pathfinder and Sector Led Improvement Partner (SLIP) resources, enabling system development and redesign and contributing to long-term positive trends. However, where numbers of children in care are low and are benchmarked by leaders as being at an appropriate level, a different approach to measuring the impact of early help is required. In other authorities, where we’ve gone in as SLIP, you can have a big impact if you get your early help right. You can reduce children in care numbers, support reunification and all of that… But if you’re already operating at a low level of children in care, you can’t look at that as a go