Welcome to the online home of Child First Trust. 

We are an education charity based in North East Essex and Tendring, formerly Child First LDG (Local Delivery Group) and we exist to support vulnerable and disadvantaged children in our member schools.  Child First has gone from strength to strength and in 2014 we became a charity in our own right, providing a wide range of services to support children and families from our member schools. Whilst this site is primarily our ‘internal portal’ (and as such has a number of password protected pages), we hope you will find it a useful overview of our work and the services provided.

Our core services include the provision of Family Support, Counselling and Speech and Language Therapy.

Family Support

Our Family Support Workers are accessible, knowledgeable and inspiring! They work incredibly hard to provide a bespoke service that supports and empowers our Child First families to thrive and not just survive. They work in the family home, local community venues or via telephone and online. Additionally, they provide ‘Step By Step’ Parenting Workshops that enable parents and carers to come together, learn new skills, share ideas and feel supported.

Counselling

The mental health and wellbeing of our children is critical to ensuring they are ready and able to learn. Our counselling team is first rate. They work on a 1:1 basis, providing a safe, therapeutic space, for children and young people to share and understand their emotions.  Students are giving the tools they need to communicate effectively and to better cope with the challenges that life brings.

Speech and Language Therapy

As access to statutory provision has become more challenging, the need for additional SLT interventions and support has never been higher. Our Speech and Language Therapists work with SENCO’s, teachers, students and parents to literally ‘give a voice’ to those who may struggle. They focus on building ‘capacity and knowledge’ within our schools and their annual programme of Continued Professional Development compliments this.

The work of Child First is all non-statutory, providing our member schools with a timely and effective range of services that focus on the mental health and wellbeing of our children and young people – which, in turn, gives them the best possible chance to engage effectively with their education and improve their life chances. Our services work collaboratively to support the whole family.

We believe that Child First is collaborative working at its very best. We have clear ambitions for the future and strive to provide programmes that really do make a difference. To find out more please navigate the tabs above or call us on 01206 252152.

Our charity number is 1158410

Our company number is 09053347.

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