PROCESS FOR PERSONALISED PLANNING AND PERSONAL BUDGETS PILOT . HAMPSHIRE CHILDREN’S SERVICES – SOCIAL CARE.

BACKGROUND

This process explains the background to Hampshire Children’s Services piloting of personal budgets. It also explains the principles behind personalised planning & personal budgets and the steps taken throughout the process. These steps lead from the first enquiries and discussions between a family, child/young person & professionals, to the allocation of funding, planning and review.

In the first instance, Hampshire Children’s Services Pilot for personal budgets, will focus on a small group of 16 families testing a personal budget with a social care plan of support.

The pilot will commence in February 2013 and continue to the Autumn, when there will be an evaluation of lessons learned in order to inform planning for the future.

The first group of 8 families will be followed by a second group of 8, a few months later. it is hoped to include some families who have a child or young person with health care needs in this second group, so that personal budgets for health and social care needs can be tested. Discussions about personal budgets in education are underway.

The Government green paper, ‘Support and Aspiration’, a new approach to Special Educational Needs and Disability’ (2011) was followed by ‘Progress & Next Steps’ in May 2012. These documents have led to Local Authorities across the country working to improve & re-shape services for children/young people with disabilities and additional needs.

Hampshire is one of 7 Local Authorities in the South of the Country, known as the SE7, who are part of the Government pathfinder programme testing this work. The aim being to help us see how we can improve outcomes for disabled children and their families.

As part of this work the Government intends to enshrine in legislation, the ‘offer of a personal budget’ to eligible families with a disabled child/young person, by September 2014.

A personal budget is an assessed amount of funding allocated when a child or young person has support needs which cannot be met without individual and additional support. A personal budget is only one part of a whole system of support, opportunity and activity. The emphasis is on children, young people and their families being able to take control and exercise choice about the support and services they use.

For example, children and young people access many activities and services in their world, (swimming pools, cinemas, schools, their doctor & dentist); these are examples of universal and mainstream services and are the first place to look for opportunities for children and young people to get support and to be included alongside children of the same age.

Sometimes there is an identified need arising from the diagnosis of a disability and a targeted service, is required, for example the Children’s Learning Disability team or a Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service.

Communities are groups of people who come together due to a shared interest, geography, belief/faith or other reason. We understand that communities have many strengths which come from the skills, knowledge, experience of the people & services within it. We call this ‘community wealth.’

We understand that each of us and every family has ‘real wealth’ also, this means the strengths, knowledge, skills & experience all individuals and families have. We use these strengths to benefit ourselves and each other.

Finally there is the part relating to additional and individual support needs over and above those which can be met within universal, targeted, community & family wealth systems. This relates to specialist support services including the use of personal budgets.

We would like children, young people with disabilities and their families to be aware of the short break schemes in their own communities. We want to enable children & young people with disabilities to join in with safe, entertaining and interesting activities, whilst giving their parents or carers an opportunity to have a short break from caring.

In Hampshire, our Short Breaks Team, have worked with community providers, to improve the range of interesting activities for children & young people with disabilities. We would like these activities to benefit as many children/young people & families as possible.

Hampshire Children’s Services short breaks programme is open to ALL children & young people who:-

  • Have a disability & additional needs & may require support to participate fully in leisure or recreation activities.
  • Are between 0-19 years old. (Currently young people aged between18-25 years are supported by adult services for social care support services)
  • Live in Hampshire and/or attend a school in Hampshire (excluding Portsmouth, Southampton & Isle of Wight as they have similar schemes)
  • The following are community services we will offer you.
  • Information and advice via Parent Voice, you can contact by e mailing
  • Information and advice on short breaks, via the Short Breaks Team, Gateway Card & Hampshire Gateway publications & website. Website
  • A wide variety of short breaks activities, where the extra support your child needs is funded by the Short Breaks Team and only the usual entrance fee that any family would pay for is required.

You can contact the Hampshire Children’s Services short break team, at or phone 01962 846399. Our short break team continue to work with community providers of recreational short breaks, to both improve access for children and young people with disabilities to mainstream leisure activities and enable specialist support to be provided when needed.

There is also a fortnightly panel, that meets to ensure there is a good spread of activities across the County, so that as many families as possible can access them and benefit.

OTHER HAMPSHIRE SERVICES FOR CHILDREN

  • There is a wide range of services for children and young people in Hampshire and at Hampshire County Council provides information about those services. See also for information on Services for Young Children.
  • Hampshire Children’s Services also works with a wide range of organisations in the Voluntary sector. See for information on important voluntary services in our community.

Hampshire County Council has spent a long time talking to children, their families and professionals in Hampshire and have created a Children and Young People’s plan. This strategic plan identifies five key outcomes that we wish to ensure for children and young people living in Hampshire. They are:-

  • Reducing the incidence and impact of poverty on the achievement and life chances of children and young people.
  • Securing children and young people’s social, emotional and mental health, promoting healthy lifestyles and reducing inequalities.
  • Providing opportunities to learn, within and beyond the school day, that raise children and young people’s aspirations, encourage excellence and enable them to enjoy and achieve beyond their expectations.
  • Ensuring that children and young people are safe and feel safe.
  • Promoting vocational, leisure and recreational activities that provide opportunities for children and young people to experience success and make a positive contribution.

Some children in Hampshire might need support to help them meet these outcomes and their families might need some support to continue caring for their child and supporting them to reach their goals.

Not every child will be eligible for a Personal Budget. Social workers will always look first to family & community resources, as this promotes inclusion and participation, something young people in Hampshire have told us they value.

If a disabled child, requires specialist and additional services to meet their needs, has a significant disability and needs one to one support from an adult, they will usually be entitled to a service from one of the four disabled children’s teams in Hampshire. The eligibility criteria for these teams can be found at

If a child has significant needs below one to one support from an adult, they may still receive funding if this is required to pay for additional support, to ensure they are able to achieve the priorities set out in Hampshire’s Children and Young People’s Plan.

How much funding a family receives, depends on the needs that are agreed in the child’s assessment. In Hampshire the child/young person’s social worker will be the person who completes the assessment with the young person & their family.

Based on the outcome of the assessment and the level of need indicated, Hampshire County Council will make an offer of funding based on five bands.

They are:-

  • Universal Support:- No specialist support is required. The child’s needs are established and good outcomes can be met through universal services. Parent/carers & family have good networks and do not feel they need any additional support.
  • 1st level of support – Most of the child’s needs are being met by universal services. There may be a small level of additional support required, to enable the child to access these services. Parent/carers and siblings feel they may benefit from low level support from time to time.
  • 2nd level of support – Universal services cannot meet all identified needs and so a mixture of services is required in order to reach outcomes. There may be the need for some 1-1 support for the child from an adult, at times and in particular circumstances. Parent/carers and siblings feel they would benefit from some additional support, along with universal & targeted services.
  • 3rd level Support – The child has significant support needs and will require substantial funding in order to meet their outcomes. There will be the frequent need for 1-1 support. Parents/carers and siblings would benefit from regular additional support.
  • 4th level Support – There are significant and high care needs and multi-agency discussions and planning are required, along with substantial to exceptional support from social care. Parents/carers and siblings regular and high levels of support across agencies to enable them to meet their outcomes.

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A social worker will work with the child/young person and their family to carry out an assessment. This assessment will look in detail at:-

  • Eligibility for funding.
  • Who the child is, their skills, talents and interests.
  • The support they need
  • Building up a picture of the child’s life.
  • Begin to identify the community links that could work well for the child/young person and family.

As part of this assessment, something called a RAS – Resource Allocation System is used to support the assessment and helps Hampshire Children’s Services understand how much funding it will allocate.

The conclusion of the assessment and RAS, will be taken to a Hampshire County Council Panel, by the family’s social worker. An amount of funding will then be offered to the child, young person & family that relates to the level of need identified.

The amount of funding offered is the council’s view after assessing the child and family, of how much funding should be provided to meet the child’s needs and is a fair share of the money available to spend on social care for children with disabilities.

 If a family are unhappy with the amount of funding offered, they will be given the opportunity to discuss this with their social worker & the decision maker. Together they will look at the assessment and identified needs again to try and decide what the right level of funding needs to be. The assessment may be taken back to panel for further review. If at the end of this process the family are still unhappy with the decision, they will be supported to use the complaints process.

The funding for Personal budgets is not an additional resource, but is a new way of allocating Hampshire Children’s Services money fairly. The Council’s legal duties have not changed. The key responsibility is to meet eligible children’s assessed needs and provide the support they need.

Once the family have been offered their funding amount, they can start to work out how the money could be used. The support plan offers the chance to think about what a really good life for the child/young person and their family would look like now and in the future and explains how to use the budget to make some of this happen. The support plan tests that the allocated budget can meet the child young person’s needs.

There is support available for children, young people & their families to help create their support plan. This may come from:-

  • A support worker from an independent agency
  • The child’s social worker.
  • Someone else who knows the family well.

However the plan is created there are simple questions to ask to make sure the right things are being considered. These questions should provide important information about the child/young person.

  • What are the child’s gifts, skills, strengths?
  • What are the child’s hobbies and interests?
  • What relationships and community resources does the child have which can support alongside the budget?
  • What strengths and resources do the family have that can support alongside the budget?

This gives families the chance to work out what’s going well in life that needs to continue and what isn’t going so well and needs to change. They can then prioritise what the focus of the plan will be, to improve things.

  • This is a really clear statement of what the plan hopes to achieve. It should reflect the main outcomes the child, young person & family want to reach.
  • This is the detail of how the child & family will be supported, by whom and when.

Hampshire County Council need to see that the budget they have allocated to the child will support them well. The support plan lays out what is going to happen to make sure the child/young person will meet the objectives within the plan. The plan also needs to show how the family as a whole is being supported to achieve their agreed outcomes.

  • How was the child/young person involved in the planning?
  • How can we help the child/young person be in control of the plan?
  • How have we used the child/young person’s preferred communication system to enable them to be involved in their planning and review?

Once the support plan is complete families should:-

  • Check with the person who supports them with their planning, whether that is going to be social worker or an independent person, that the plan meets need & desired outcomes.
  • Check the costs of your plan are within the allocated funding limit.
  • If the plan is going to cost more than the allocated funding limit, the child or young person’s social worker will go through the plan with the family & may need to take it back to panel.
  • If the child, young person & family, social worker & ‘planner’ are happy with the plan and it is within the funding allocation, the team manager will agree it, as long as it meets assessed needs and outcomes.

 If a family are unhappy with any changes that may be proposed or think the funding is not enough to meet their child’s needs then an opportunity will be made for them to talk this over with your social worker and the decision maker.

Personal budgets have been designed to put children and their families in more control of their support. Being in control of this doesn’t mean that young people & their family have to take control of the money, if they don’t want to.

There are options for how the money is managed.

  • The budget can be taken as a direct payment, the family will set up a separate bank account and manage the funds.
  • Children’s Services can manage the money and arrange the support in the support plan.

Remember that there are lots of kinds of support that can be part of the plan.

A family or young person can choose staff through employing personal assistants with a personal budget. This is particularly relevant where a young person requires one to one support and consistent assistance, to meet their outcomes. Also when a young person wants to trial having a personal budget to help with the transition to adult services.

If it helps to reach the objectives and outcomes of the plan, a wide range of activities can be used. social worker’s will always look at short breaks first to see how they may compliment the specialist support required in the personal budget. This is called holistic planning and often creates a really strong plan.

Support can also include transport to activities, accommodation, day trips.

It should not include, universal short breaks, equipment and therapies as provided by Hampshire’s core equipment service and core therapy services.