Children’s Specialist Support Team

Specialist support for children and young people with disabilities

Looking after a child or young person with disabilities can cause significant stress at times. Some families may need higher levels of support to maintain an ordinary family life.

Sometimes this will be for a few weeks or months to overcome a difficult time but sometimes it will be for a longer period of time.

The Children’s Specialist Support Team will usually only be involved where a child or young person has significant disability or impairment and there is also an additional need, for example:

• parent, family support or sibling support
• promoting independence and social development
• child protection
• prevention of coming into care or being placed away from home

Who is eligible?

If you are caring for a child with additional needs and you feel you require further support please telephone the Duty and Assessment Team based within Children’s Social Care. They will determine if an assessment is required and whether a child or young person is eligible for support based on the needs of the child, parenting capacity and social and environmental factors.

Services can only be provided as part of an agreed plan following an assessment. Usually this will be a social care assessment, carried out within 45 days of contact, however it could also be as part of Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP ).

Any assessment will always include the wishes and feelings of the child or young person their aspirations, aspirations their family have for them and information from Health and Education as a minimum but it may be necessary to talk to others.

Once the assessment is completed then a resource allocation meeting will consider how the needs of the child / young person are best met and by whom.

Personal social care budgets

One outcome from an Assessment might be a Personal Budget . This refers to the indicative budget that could be made available if it is clear that a young person or child is assessed as needing additional and individual support. This support could be used at home and when out and about in the local and wider community.