Guide to Children's Integrated Services
The Access Centre responds to all contact made for the purposes
of accessing targeted and specialised services to children in need
and their families, and concerns about children who may be at risk
of harm and need protection (Children Act, 1989).
The contact may be made by members of the public, other Council
staff or by a range of external agencies.
The Access Centre Children's Team will provide advice and
information and pass on to the FAS Teams any requests for service
that potentially meet the threshold for targeted and specialist,
family support and safeguarding services and also records any
requests for service made via the Integrated Area Teams.
The Service is delivered in partnership with the Worcestershire
Hub.
Professional Support to ACCT - The Professional Support Manager
and Senior decide on appropriate action and ensure the consistency
of approach from the Access Centre Children's Team. They provide
professional social work advice and promote and develop the work of
Integrated Children's Services with partner organisations and
community groups.
Making a Referral
The Integrated Area Teams work in 3 area bases across the
County, offering targeted services to children in need as well as
co-ordinating and providing earlier intervention, educational
psychology and welfare services to schools and other settings when
needs are identified. Services are provided on the basis of
assessed need. Our primary aim is to support children and young
people within their families and communities. For most children and
young people, their lifelong needs will be best met in this way.
For those children and young people with a Child & Young
Person's Plan, a Child Protection Plan or a Looked After Child
Plan, partner agencies work together to minimise risks and improve
outcomes. Where children and young people are accommodated, the aim
is to return them to the care of their family as soon as possible.
The safety and welfare of children and young children remains
paramount and where children and young people are unable to be
cared for safely by their families, our aim is to ensure they have
an alternative, secure, permanent home. Each Area will contain the
following Teams:
Family Assessment & Support Team
(FAST)- These teams of Social Workers,
Social Work Assistants and Family Support Workers take all new
social care referrals from the Access Centre Children's Team (ACCT)
for children who potentially meet the threshold as a Child in Need
- Tier 3 services (Children Act, 1989). The Team undertake all
initial and core assessments and Child Protection enquiries, and
formulate plans with families to meet identified needs. Targeted
family support is aimed at prevention of family breakdown,
safeguarding and swift reunification of children who are looked
after, where possible.
Children & Families Teams (C&F) - For
longer-term interventions, Social Workers and Social Work
Assistants will be the key professionals focusing on progressing
Child Protection Plans, Looked After Children Plans and more
complex Child & Young People's Plans, to ensure children can
remain or be returned to their families safely, or plan for a
secure alternative permanent home where this is not possible.
Community & Education Teams (CET) -
Educational Psychologists (EPs), Education Welfare Officers (EWOs)
and Family Support Workers (FSWs) in this Team will work closely
with the other Area Teams providing advice and guidance in respect
of individual children and young people, and in partnership with
schools and other educational settings in the community. Their
focus is to provide advice and support from EWOs to ensure
attendance is maintained and to identify any support or concerns at
an early stage; to provide support and guidance from EPs to promote
best practice and raise achievement and outcomes for the setting as
a whole and for individual pupils; and to ensure a continuation of
Family Support Services where further assessment or advice and
support is required to progress a child's plan to maintain or
return a child to their family.
CAF Coordinator - This Service will assist with
the co-ordination of the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) in each
area, providing advice and guidance to those completing a CAF and
ensuring pathways between Tier 3 and earlier preventative services
- Tier 2. The CAF Coordinator will be able to supervise and/or
guide the development of Family Support Workers employed in other
settings, e.g., schools. They will also recruit up to 3 Community
& Family Support Workers in each Area to provide Tier 2
services when additional needs are identified. The CAF Co-ordinator
will work closely with Extended Services and Children's Centres in
their area to ensure a "bridge" between Tier 2 and universal
services - Tier 1.
Social Care Services
Social Care Services work with children who have complex needs who
require statutory services in order to ensure that their welfare is
not significantly impaired and to ensure that they are protected
from significant harm.
Social Care professionals are responsible for assessing those
needs and working in partnership with children and their families
to make a plan to meet those needs.
A multi-agency plan is still usually required to support
children with such complex needs, although the lead professional
responsible for co-ordinating support is more likely to be from one
of the statutory agencies.
The following groups of children will have a Social Care lead
professional and will need a high level of interagency support to
achieve good outcomes, particularly in terms of safeguarding,
health and educational outcomes:
- Children who are subject to a Child Protection Plan
- Children in need
- Children who are looked after
- Young people leaving care
- Children for whom adoption is the plan
Social Care professionals also work in other Teams and will be
the lead professional:
- Children with complex disabilities or health needs (Children
with Disabilities Teams)
- Children diagnosed with significant mental health needs
(CAMHS)
- Young offenders involved with Youth Justice Services (Youth
Offending Service)
Family Support Service
This Service provides the professional lead for Family Support
Services - promoting and supporting early intervention with
families in the community, and targeted services provided to
children and young people at greater risk of harm or family
breakdown, or with more complex and enduring needs. The Service
includes a Family Contact Service and a Support Care Service.
Family Contact Service - The Family Contact
Service is a countywide service. The principle aim of the Service
is to maintain safe regular contact between children who are Looked
After and their parents, siblings and significant other family
members, usually whilst assessments are being completed or during
the course of court proceedings. The Service is commissioned by the
Integrated Services Teams.
Support Care Service - Support Care is accessed
through the Area Integrated Teams and is provided as part of a
Child & Young Person's Plan. The scheme offers children and
young people time managed day-care, overnight or weekend care with
an approved foster carer. The aim is to enable children and young
people to remain with their families and to prevent the need for
them to become looked after on a full-time basis.
Educational Psychology
Service
Educational Psychologists are largely employed by Local Authorities
(LAs). They work with children from birth to 19 years, in many
different settings – home, nursery, primary and secondary schools,
special schools or units, social care provisions, and hospitals. In
the course of their work they regularly liaise with other
professionals within Health and children's services.
Education Welfare Service
The Education Welfare service provides a range of services relating
to school attendance and child employment, which currently include
consultancy, advice, training and direct intervention through
casework. The service has delegated powers to act as investigators
on behalf of the county council and to instigate legal proceedings
against parents and employers who fail to meet their legal
obligations.
Making a Referral
Information for the Public
This Service comprises of six Integrated Services - Specialist
Support Teams, two specialist Social Work Teams for Children with
Disabilities, two Short Break Residential Units and family and
community based short-break services commissioned from Barnardo's
for children with disabilities, staff seconded to WF PCT at the
Child Development Centre, and therapeutic Social Workers within the
Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS).
The key aim of the Service is to safeguard and promote the
welfare and achievement of children and young people with
disabilities and complex health needs by strengthening and
supporting families, supporting education and making effective use
of statutory and voluntary sector resources.
Specialist Social Work
Teams
Within Worcestershire there
are two specialist social work teams who support children with
permanent and substantial disabilities / complex health needs and
their families. The team for North
Worcestershire, which covers Bromsgrove, Redditch and Wyre
Forest is based at County Buildings, Windsor Street, Bromsgrove.
The team for South Worcestershire, which
covers Malvern, Worcester City and Wychavon is based at Bridgewater
House, Worcester.
Both teams offer support and assessment of need, as well as
providing the full range of statutory childcare duties. The primary
aim of the teams is to provide supportive care packages based on
the assessed needs of the child and family, including the needs of
carers and siblings. In doing this the teams work closely with the
child/young person and the family as well as a range of other
workers from the statutory and voluntary sector where this is
required.
Some agencies and groups we currently work closely with include
Health Visitors, Community Nurses, School Nurses, Paediatricians,
Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, Speech and Language
Therapists, Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCO's),
schools, Early Years and Childcare service, Barnardo's Short
Breaks, Malvern Special Families, Acorns Hospice, the Orchard
Service, Sensory Impairment Team, Children's Specialist Support
Service, Connexions and the Adult Social Services Transitions
social workers.
At the present time over 400 children are known to the Social
Services Children with Disability Teams and receiving services
directly or indirectly.
Short breaks Service
There are currently over 220 children in receipt of short
breaks in Worcestershire and we are continuing to develop services
in conjunction with our partner agencies.
The Government has given all local authorities extra money for
the development of short breaks under its 'Aiming High for Disabled
Children' programme 2008 - 11. The County Council will work with
children and young people, parents\carers and agencies to plan for
the best use of our extra funding.
All short break services (previously known as respite care)
provided directly by Children's Services in Worcestershire or
commissioned by them are subject to an assessment of need.
Children and young people are then considered by our Short
Breaks Panel, which comprises members of Children's Services,
Barnardos Early Years and Health services, who try and identify the
most appropriate resource to meet their identified needs. The Panel
will take into account parent/carer wishes and any separate
assessment of their needs that has been completed.
All our service provides are signed up to a core set of
Children's Services work in partnership with our Health colleagues
and Barnardos and our joint aim is to make the best use of
available short break resources and to ensure fair access to
services.
Integrated Services - Specialist
Support
ISSS is a specialist teaching service which offers support to
parents, carers, early years settings and schools on a range of
needs.
The Hearing Impairment Team supports children
and students who are deaf and hearing impaired. They provide:
·audiological and educational advice as well as a peripatetic
teaching service strategies to develop and promote
independence.
The Visual Impairment Team supports children,
pupils and students with:
·a visual impairment which cannot be corrected by glasses and
provides strategies to develop & promote independent
learning.
The Multi-Sensory Impairment Team supports
children and pupils who are:
·deaf/blind and have a combination of vision/hearing loss, which
creates a unique pattern of learning difficulties or who have
substantial developmental delay in responding to sensory
stimuli
·pupils with a sensory loss and additional disabilities.
The Medical Education Team supports pupils
with:
·medical difficulties which prevent them from attending school
and which are evidenced by a written request for support from a
medical consultant.
The Complex Communication Difficulties/Autism
Teamsupports pupils and students with:
·complex communication difficulties, or an autism spectrum
condition, primarily in mainstream school environments, at the
Action Plus and Statemented stage of the SEN Code of Practice.
The Assistive ICT & Alternative and Augmentative
Communication Teamsupports pupils with:
·limited verbal communication where an augmentative
communication system may be appropriate
·a severe difficulty in recording text, diagrams or pictures,
which may warrant the use of assistive ICT.
The Further & Higher Education Team
supports post 16 learners with:
·a sensory impairment or autistic spectrum disorder, in colleges
throughout Worcestershire and other counties, via college service
agreements or the individual disabled students allowance
Looked After and Adopted Children's Services (LAAC) is a
county-wide service providing specialist support and services to
looked after and adopted children and their carers and families.
LAAC Services focus on "whole system" approaches in order to
improve life chances for looked after and adopted children in a
variety of placements and settings. Working in partnership across
Children's Services and with partner agencies, voluntary and
community sectors from early years to adulthood is an essential
part of our "core" business. The LAAC sector is made up of 4 areas
of service - Residential Services, the Fostering Service, the
Adoption Service and the Integrated Service for Looked
After Children (ISL).
Fostering Services
There are 4 Teams in this service - 2 foster care teams providing
supervision support and information to foster carers in order to
maintain secure, safe and stable placements; a placement and panels
team managing duty systems and requests for placements for
fostering and residential placements and administration and
function of fostering panel, and the Adoption and Fostering
Development Team, which has responsibility for recruitment,
training and development of foster carers and adoptive parents and
provides support for first year of approval.
Adoption Services
This service is made up of 2 teams - the County Adoption Team which
assesses and supports adoptive applicants, finds families for
children where adoption is the plan and provides post placement and
post order support; and the Adoption Support Team responsible for
post-Adoption or Special Guardianship Order support to adulthood,
to all parties in the adoption and Special Guardianship process.
The adoption and fostering team recruits, prepares and provides
training for prospective adopters.
Residential Services
There are 5 children's homes offering 25 in-house residential
placements. The new children's home, Green Hill Lodge, opened in
April 2007, initially for 6 young people who would otherwise
require specialist external residential placement. The high
occupancy rates of our residential services (94% April 2007) has
led to a capital request for funding to replace a medium-stay home
in Redditch. The existing home has had registration extended until
the end of 2007.
Integrated Services for Looked After Children
(ISL)
ISL is a multi-agency, holistic service providing additional
support to looked after and adopted children in order to ensure
maximum life chances are gained from education, health, community
and leisure opportunities and positive and stable social care. ISL
is multi-disciplinary with colleagues from a range of professional
backgrounds including Health, Education and Social Care. There are
3 teams within ISL, Teams 1 and 3 focus on educational achievement
and inclusion and community and leisure opportunities and Team 2
focuses on health and well-being and stable and secure living
environments for looked after and adopted children.