Specialist Support Service Practice Protocol
Specialist Support Service is a brand new service that includes ISL, a new Post Order Support Team, an Outreach Team and three Children and Family Support Teams.
The service consists of a dedicated team of professionals and a Management Team, who are:
Contact Details:
ISL Health & Wellbeing Team is based at The Pines, Bilford Road, Worcester, WR3 8PU. Telephone: 01905 455319 select Option 2 for Team 2.
Outreach Team, family support team and contact team are based at The Birches, 98 New Road, Bromsgrove, B60 2LB. Telephone: 01527 575648 or 01527 579684.
Outreach Direct Line 01527 556641
What Specialist Support Services provides:
Once a request has been accepted the service will put together a bespoke package of multi-agency support, from within the service's own resources and by engaging with other agencies (such as Stronger Families). We call this brokerage.
Making a referral:
Special Support Services has a Single Point of Referral for Social Care use:
· The referral form can be found on SID in the Children's Services Handbook, Section J, Forms and Templates.
· Forms will need to be completed by the referrer detailing the needs of the child or young person, and returned to The Specialist Support Service CSA via or telephone 01527 579684for advice.
· There is a form to complete, much of which is pulled through from FWI, and a Secure Base Index, a contextual measure for how our support is delivered.
When completing the SPR referral form:
· Referrers should identify the needs of family / young person, not what service is required.
· Specialist Support Services will determine how best to respond and which service will provide any support
· Referrals must not be sent to individual teams
· Referral forms not completed fully will be returned to the referrer.
· Urgent referrals can be discussed with the relevant Team Manager, but a Referral Form must still be completed
· Social Care Referrals to Stronger Families must go via the Single Point of Referral
· Family Group Conference Referrals must go via the Single Point of Referral and not direct to Daybreaks. Workers must COMPLETE THE DAYBREAKS REFERRAL FORM, NOT THE SPR FORM. The criteria for referral to Daybreaks is:
o There is immediate and real risk of a child / young person becoming looked after
o Pre-proceedings (i.e. PLO)
o Reunification is being considered within the wider family
o Referrers must send their referral via the Single point of Referral
ISL Health & Wellbeing Team
Who are we?
· The Health and Wellbeing team is a multi-agency service combining skills and expertise from CAMHS, Worcestershire County Council, and Worcestershire Health and Care Trust to support those who care for Looked After or Adopted children, or those in alternative living arrangements. Staffed by Social Workers, Clinical Psychologists, a Mental Health Practitioner, the Named Nurse for Looked After Children, and the 16+ and Care Leavers Nurse, a holistic model supporting the health and wellbeing of children and young people can be offered. Our underpinning theoretical model for our work is based on attachment and trauma.
Core Business
The Team offers the following services:
· Carer Consultation – A 2 hour reflective meeting focusing on supporting carers or adoptive parents to make better sense of the young people they live with using our a theoretical framework of attachment and trauma models.
· Case discussion – A 90 minute reflective meeting for children's social workers to come think about a child when they need time to be concerned with and focus on a specific child accessing our specialist knowledge around attachment and trauma.
· Parenting Support – Through Home visiting, Telephone support or at the Pines
· Network meetings – Facilitated and chaired by ISL staff or attendance at network meetings called by social workers to support the networks around children to remain cohesive and providing specialist knowledge around attachment and trauma.
· Direct work – Child and Carer / adoptive parent. We use either a relationship based play or DDP approach. There is a very limited capacity for this to be offered and is always a clinical decision as to whether to proceed with these types of intensive therapy type intervention.
· Attendance at professionals meetings for LAC (not LAC reviews) (if available) – We can attend meetings to support thinking around those in our target group as one-off interventions where you think our specialist knowledge would be useful.
· Attendance at reunification meetings for LAC retuning home (if available) – We can attend meetings to support thinking around those in our target group as one-off interventions where you think our specialist knowledge would be useful.
· Provision of transition support – Including attendance at professionals meetings to support effective planning of transitions for our target group.
· Health Assessments – We have an oversight of all health assessments completed on LAC, and provide administrative support to the health assessment process both for Worcestershire LAC and LAC placed here by other authorities. The named nurses also complete Health Assessments on young people aged 16+ and those who are not part of a school nurse case load.
· Training – ISL provide considerable training around attachment, developmental trauma, mental and physical health amongst other areas. This includes delivering training for children services staff and foster carers and in multi-agency forums through the WSCB. Working with our Children in Care Council we also support corporate parents to understand their role as corporate parents.
· Team Around the Home – ISL 2 leads on the Team Around the Home project providing holistic support to WCC Children's Residential Homes. This includes social work, psychological, mental health, physical health and participation support. We work in conjunction with colleagues from the ISL education teams, the community and leisure project and CAMHS to support our staff in residential settings to provide outstanding care for our young people.
Who can we offer support to?
· Worcestershire County Council Foster Carers and approved Kinship Carers
· Those with Special Guardianship Orders, where Worcestershire has responsibilities
· Those with Residence Orders, where Worcestershire has responsibilities
· Adoptive parents, where Worcestershire has responsibilities
· Worcestershire County Council Residential Homes
· Those in Private fostering arrangements
· Professionals in networks for the above young people
We can also offer support to young people in these placement types and their carers where Worcestershire does not have responsibility however, this support will incur a cost for example; support to IFA Carers, Agency Residential Homes or Children placed in Worcestershire by other Local Authorities.
Why refer to ISL Health & Wellbeing?
Some examples of why you might seek support are:
· To help carers or adoptive parents better understand the young people they live with using our attachment and trauma informed model
· To better understand a young person you are working with
· To seek a clinical decision about whether a direct therapeutic intervention (brief or long term) for young people and those who care for them is appropriate
· To seek better mental health understanding of young people you work with
· To seek specialist social work support
· To support a network around a child or young person to work more cohesively together
· To think about effective transitions or planning for Looked After Children and Young People
· To gain a space to think and reflect
Outreach Team
Who are we?
The Outreach Team cover the whole of Worcestershire and will consider out of county work which will be looked at individually. The team work 365 days a year and cover evenings, weekends and bank holidays. We work on a rota to ensure we can provide a flexible service to meet the needs of the service users.
The Outreach team have 2 of their own independent living flats based in Redditch and another Four will open in Evesham in August 2015.
We are also currently purchasing a number of properties to provide more 'in house' provision for supported living.
When placing a young person in supported living please ensure a referral is made to the team for support hours instead of purchasing from the provider.
Core Business
The team has 2 main roles these are:
1. Provide transitional support to young people who are Looked After or subject to judgement rulings, Southwark. This includes providing support to young people who are living or about to live independently. We support young people to develop independence skills and make successful transitions into adulthood. We can provide assessments and review independent support needed. This support is intense and each plan of support is individual to the needs of the child or young person. This work is usually long term.
2. Provide emergency support in times of crisis. This support happens with immediate effect. It can range from a number of different situations from a young person being homeless and requiring support or other crisis situation. Each emergency referral is individual and will be out of hours, support may comprise of a phone call or a visit. Please contact team directly for this service. This support is usually very short term (a weekend) until a plan can be put in place.
What we do
· We offer intense support directly to the young person
· We cover all aspects of independent living skills from budgeting, cooking, accessing services to emotional support.
Who do we work with?
We work with children and young people between the ages of 15yrs and 21yrs (Sometimes up to 24yrs if still receiving a service from care leaver's team).
We work with Children in need (Section 17), Looked After Children (Section 20) and former relevant (Ceased to be LAC at 18yrs).
We work closely with the young people who are in residential placements, foster placements, in own or supported accommodation and whilst at home with a carer/parent.
We work with WCC Children's Residential Homes and an Outreach worker is allocated to each home.
What we don't do
We are a very flexible service and the priority is the children, young people and families who we work with. However, there are certain things that we don't do;
· We are not a baby-sitting service and need to have constructive work to complete
· We are not a taxi service for children, young people or families
· We do not provide a respite service
Children and Family Support Teams
Who are we?
The Children and Family Support Teams incorporate the former Specialist Family Support Team and the Family Contact Team. There are 3 teams, covering the 3 discrete areas within Worcestershire Children's Social Care Services, specifically Wyre Forest & Bromsgrove, Redditch & Wychavon, and Worcester City & Malvern.
The aims of the Teams are:
• To provide the Specialist Family Support skills required in order to effect change and empower families to develop their own skills and ability and care safely in a way that meets the child's needs and keeps them safe and in the family environment where appropriate
• To support any plan for an alternative family or suitable setting where this is not possible
• To provide safe and supervised contact between children and their families where this is required
• To ensure support is co-ordinated and provided within the family's own resources and/or with support from Targeted, Universal or other Specialist Services where needed, for families to be enabled to care for their own children safely without the need for Specialist Family Support input where possible
What We Do
· To maintain the bond between Looked After Children and their parents/family members in a safe and secure way
· Work with an age range of 0-18yrs
· The Children and Family Support Teams are responsible for the effective delivery of Specialist Family Support services to those children of Worcestershire, and their families, who have a Child In Need, a Child Protection or a Looked After Child Care or Adoption Plan
· The Teams are commissioned to work with children, young people and their families by one of the frontline Safeguarding Teams, including referrals from the Children with Disabilities Team, the LAC Permanency Team or the 16+ Team
· For Specialist Family Support, The Teams will work with the child, young person and their family where Specialist Family Support skills are required
· The Teams will work to prevent family breakdown where this is imminent, and where a young person is at risk of entering the LAC system
· Effect reunification back to family
· Specialist development of parenting skills
· Fast response to emergency situations and times of crisis in support of the social worker
· Work in partnership with the Outreach Team – where the Specialist Family Support Service works with the family and Outreach works with the young person, modelling mediation and bringing family relationships back on track
· Work 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday and operate an additional weekend cover system for families on the edge of care. Requests must be received by the team by midday Friday by a telephone call backed up by email to the BSO inbox
· Provide the allocated Social Worker with a Progress Summary of work undertaken at review and at the end of involvement
· Workers will support Social Workers to complete their Parenting Assessments
· For Family Contact, priority consideration will be given to children who are subject to Care Proceedings or when Care Proceedings are imminent, or to children where a Care Order stipulates a contact requirement. Other referrals will be considered on an individual basis however this could incur a recharge to the Safeguarding Team once Group Manager approval has been sought
· Transport the child to and from contact where reasonable after all other avenues have been explored, and where that contact is being provided by us
· Each referral will be allocated a worker as availability allows and to fit with priorities. This will normally be done within a week but in exceptional circumstances and depending on the complexity of work, may on occasion take a little longer