Social Care Service for children with SEND 0-25

Here we explain how social care services are delivered if you have a child with a disability aged between 0-25, and how to access an assessment that can lead to support if your child is eligible.

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Integrated services 

In South Gloucestershire’s Integrated Children’s services there are the following teams:  

  • Access and Response service 

  • Preventative Service/Compass team.  

  • Locality Social work service - children in need and child protection  

  • Corporate parenting service - Looked after children team, Transition to Independence team 

  • Fostering and adoption team 

  • The Preparing for Adulthood team
  • 0 – 25 Children with disabilities team 

To access any of these services your child or the family as a whole will need to follow a referral process and have an assessment.  

The council’s Access and Response Team are central to all of our children’s services. They are the first point of contact and cover a wide area of need, including safeguarding, education and social care, and can provide you with information on how to access a service and whether you will need an assessment.  

Read more about the Access and Response Team (ART).  

Early help  

Local organisations, agencies and education settings should have in place effective ways to identify any emerging problems and any potential unmet needs of individual children and families. This is often called ‘early help'. Early help is about working with your child and your family at the earliest opportunity and at the lowest level possible in order to identify issues, provide help/support and sort problems before they get any worse.  

Services that are identified to help can be those that are available to all families, or services that are for more vulnerable families who need targeted support.  

You can read about Early Help in our article How families are supported in South Gloucestershire   

There is also a dedicated area of this website, the SEND Local Offer, which contains a wide range of information on help and support for families and children 0-25 with special educational needs and disabilities.

The 0-25 Social care service 

The 0-25 Social care service provide specialist services to a defined group of disabled children, young people and young adults under the age of 25.  

The 0-25 Social care service is primarily made up of Social Work Practitioners, Occupational Therapists and Preparing for Adulthood Practitioners.  They work in close partnership with Education, Health, Housing and voluntary organisations to ensure that children,young people and young adults who receive a service can access support to achieve good outcomes.   

The service consists of the following teams:  

Social workers

If your child meets the service’s criteria the 0-25 social care teams can provide specialist services to disabled children, young people and young adults and their families, including:   

  • social care assessments so that complex support needs can be agreed, and support put in place  

  • emotional and practical support 

  • advice and signposting  

  • child protection services for disabled children   

  • services for looked after disabled children  

  • social work and family support to address specific issues 

  • short breaks/community outreach support  

  • overnight short breaks with family-based carers, in a residential unit or at home 

  • domiciliary care in the home  

  • access to direct payments in order to access support following an assessment 

Find out more about 0-25 Social workers.

   

Occupational Therapy  

This team works with children and young people with complex needs in their own home. It is mainly aimed at 0–18-year olds and supports them to live safely and independently.  

If you would like to access this team, your social worker can highlight this as a need and refer you during a Social Care Assessment or review.  

Find out more about Occupational Therapy.  

Preparing for adulthood team   

The Preparing For Adulthood Team (PFA) helps young people and their families plan for the future, looking at things your child might like, where they would like to live or what job/training they would like to do.  

The PFA team can become involved from Year 9, when they attend some education, health and care plan (EHCP) annual reviews to provide advice and guidance. However, your child can be referred at a later stage and the majority of transition work completed by the team is with older young people.  

The team will prioritise young people with the highest needs and decide who these young people are through a multi-agency Transitional Operation Group (TOG) which meets on a regular basis.    

Find out more about the PFA team.  

 

Who is eligible for support from the 0-25 social care service 

Details about how to access social care and further information is available to read on the 0-25 Disabled Children’s Social Care team eligibility guidance.

For general enquiries regarding SEND, including SEN Support Services, please contact Will Pritchard, Strategic Lead for inclusion and SEND: will.pritchard@southglos.gov.uk