Disabled Children’s Team eligibility criteria
The Disabled Children’s Team support families where all of the following have been identified in your family’s circumstances:
a)The child has a diagnosed substantial and long lasting/permanent impairment or life limiting/life threatening condition
and
b) There is significant impact on the child or family’s life including a risk to parental resilience
and
c)The child/family’s needs cannot be met through a universal service or through the services of a mainstream social care team.
This threshold criterion identifies that a child must have a permanent or enduring impairment, diagnosed by a doctor or consultant. This includes children with life limiting conditions. Children diagnosed with ADHD or mental health difficulties alone do not meet the criteria for this service. However, children diagnosed with ADHD or mental health difficulties alongside another complex diagnosis which meets the criteria, are eligible for referral to the Disabled Children’s Team.
Support for deaf children within B&NES is primarily held within the Sensory Services Team following an assessment by the Disabled Children’s Team.
Occupational Therapy Service – Within the Disabled Children’s Team there is an occupational therapist who assesses the needs of disabled children where the child or young person has permanent and substantial needs arising from their diagnosed disability, ie needs that are likely to continue beyond 12 months. The occupational therapist is able to offer advice on how to improve quality of life as well as providing aids, adaptations, including those funded from disabled facilities grants and equipment, where appropriate. Advice is also available on moving and handling.
A child or young person does not need a social worker to access the occupational therapy service and referrals can be made by families contacting the Disabled Children’s Team directly.
Safeguarding - Where safeguarding is the presenting concern this will be followed up initially by the Duty and Assessment Team, unless the Disabled Children’s Team are already working with the family, in which case safeguarding duties may be delivered by the already allocated social worker.
Case transfers to DCT
Where another team within social care is considering a case transfer to DCT, the case needs to go through the case transfer process. A case can only be transferred to DCT when the safeguarding concerns have been fully investigated and completed and universal services have been exhausted.
DCT will only be able to accept those cases where the threshold criteria on page one have been met. A diagnosis of a disability alone will not mean that there is eligibility for a DCT service and DCT do not provide services to those children and young people where the presenting need is emotional and behavioural difficulties as these needs can be met in any of the mainstream social care teams. However, if it is felt that a child or young person could benefit from a DCT service then the individual circumstances of the child and family can be discussed with the Team Manager of the Disabled Children’s Team who will make a decision on whether the team is best placed to meet these needs. Any disagreements can be escalated to the Service Manager of the Disabled Children’s Team.
In such lower level cases that do not meet the threshold criteria for a DCT service, the team will be able to provide a consultancy service to the case holding social worker.
February 2018