Working Together 2026 describes Best Start Family Hubs as bringing together practitioners from multi-agency partners, with a strong emphasis on health and education, particularly in the early years. They create a local pathway for parents from pregnancy to 19, or 25 for young people with SEND, and work closely with other children's services to safeguard children and support families with complex problems (paragraph 127). For families who no longer need targeted help, hubs offer an ongoing local support network.
They sit within universal services and community-based early help, the level below Family Help. Staff working in a hub can also be a Family Help lead practitioner (paragraph 138), and some areas base their Family Help teams in hubs (paragraphs 148 and 150).
KCSIE 2026 lists support through Best Start Family Hubs among the community-based early help options a school can draw on, and expects the DSL to know the local early help process (paragraph 578).
Local variation. What a hub offers, where it is and what it is called differs from area to area. Check your local authority's family services pages, and the local threshold document, for how a school asks for help through a hub.