Education Welfare Officer
Hello I'm Karen Gibbon, your Education Welfare Officer. 
I'm here to help you with any worries or concerns you have about your child. It can be about home or school or anything that can impact on family life, so let's work together and make it a positive and happy school experience for everyone. We need good home-school communication to work in partnership with you. For my part, I can offer a listening ear, supporting the move to secondary school, welcome you as a new parent, help with routine and information about other agencies.
I can also offer support with things like;
- Behaviour
- New to school
- Transition
- Attendance
- Illness in the family
- Housing
- Relationship breakdown
All are in strict confidence and impartial advice
I know parenting is not an easy job and at times things can get tough. It can be great and rewarding one day and challenging and helpless the next but I'm here to help you! Don't feel alone or isolated, come and have a chat.
There are lots of opportunities for you to come into school. During the last year we have arranged everything from family learning classes to help you help your child, updating your ICT skills with Apple applications and plenty of arts and crafts sessions. Currently we are preparing the garden with children and adults lending a hand to weed, plant and sow vegetables and flowers.
I'm available during school hours but I am happy to make other arrangements or home visits if that helps.
Call into school or phone 01642 673984
At Harrow Gate we firmly believe that every individual child deserves the best opportunity to fulfill their physical, emotional, intellectual and social potential.
We therefore have developed a thorough, transparent and supportive process in school for The Early Help Assessment (EHA) tool (also known as Common Assessment Framework) which is a national standardised approach that can be used across all services working with children, young people and their families to offer early intervention and support.
It is an assessment that looks at all areas of the child, assessing need early and looks at a child's strengths, needs and goals after considering all aspects of his/her life, family and environment.
The assessment is designed to be shared between professionals and used as a starting point for planning a positive way to support the child and to begin to make forward steps in meeting the child's needs. Key to the assessment process is working in partnership with families and the child or young person.
The purpose of an Early Help Assessment
The assessment process for children, young people and families will help agencies meet the obligations set by Sections 10 and 11 of the Children Act 2004 to make arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people. The assessment will help early identification of need and promote co-ordinated service provision for children with additional needs.
This process applies to all professionals working with, or coming into contact with, all children, young people and families.
The school lead on EHAs is Susan Dobbing, the school Welfare Officer. For further information about Susan please see the Welfare Officer section under the heading 'Parents.'
The role of the Early Help Assessment Lead in school is to:
- Carry out the initial assessment with the family, child (where applicable) and professionals involved. This assessment is then forwarded to the EHA team.
- Organise the Team around the Family meetings
- Make relevant referrals
- Liaise with all agencies, including receiving support from the Local Authority EHA Team.
- Arrange and document regular review meeting
Please follow link for further information on forms and process https://www.stockton.gov.uk/eha
Useful information for Parents
Useful links for Parents
Stockton Council - Family Service
Ginger Bread - Single Parent Information
Go Giver - The Charitable Citizen
