Short breaks services

What are short breaks

A short break is an opportunity for a child or young person with a disability to access enjoyable activities or experiences on their own, away from their primary carers. Not only will it enhance the child or young person’s personal and social development, it provides parents and carers with a valuable break from their caring roles and responsibilities. It may also help parents, carers and their child or young person to access the local community for other services provided. 

Many of the short break opportunities are available to all children with additional needs and are accessed through self-referral. However, some short breaks are more specialised and are offered where the child or young person’s needs are greater. These more specialist short breaks can be accessed following a social care assessment. 

Short breaks provide young people with disabilities an opportunity to: 

  • spend time away from their parents, increasing their independence 
  • have fun with their friends, supporting their social skills
  • give parents and carers a break from caring responsibilities

Short breaks can occur during the day or evening, overnight or on weekends. They can last a few hours or several days and can be in various locations, like: 

  • the family home 
  • a carer’s home
  • a residential setting
  • a universal or specialist community facility or service
  • subsidised family holidays

Family Services Directory

Our directory supports the Local Offer, Lincolnshire's family hubs and the start for life programme. It provides information on useful local organisations and activities where you live.

For more details on short breaks providers please visit our local family services directory and search for “short breaks”

You can contact short break providers directly for their costs for short breaks activities using the details provided on the family services directory. 

Who are short breaks for?

Short breaks activities and provision are for children and young people from birth to 18 years (up to their 18th birthday) with a disability.

Service How needs are identified Through discussion with Type of provision
Universal self-referral parent or child club, sport, group activities and family breaks
Targeted working with an agency or multi agency parent, child or agency targeted services (specialist holidays, youth and community groups)
Specialist social care assessment parent, child or social worker domiciliary care, family based short breaks, direct payments, overnights

Levels of support

We are committed to ensuring children with disabilities or sensory impairments can access positive experiences and families can get the support they need within universal provision.

However, there are different levels of support available for children with additional needs which is dependent on their needs:

The levels of support include:-

  • universal – for everyone
  • early help 
  • child in need
  • immediate safeguarding

levels of support

 

Where there are further concerns or unmet need within universal support, early help may be required by a single agency or multi agency coordination. (for example - ESCO or TAC). If needs continue to be unmet then specialist services may be required.

If immediate care or protection is needed, this would be called immediate safeguarding.

Once needs are met, support would reduce and the levels of support would change to reflect the need.

Universal provision - open to everyone

The majority of children in Lincolnshire who require services will receive them through universal provision within their local community. The same should be true of any child with a disability.

Universal provision, for example, sports clubs, youth clubs, libraries and children’s centres are really important in ensuring children and young people with disabilities have fun and enjoy themselves with friends, just like all children and young people. 

If a child or young person and their families can meet their own support needs, they are encouraged and supported to do so. An assessment is not required to access universal provision.

There are a wide range of directly accessible services and sources of support that can be accessed via the Local Offer pages.

To help activity workers understand and meet a young person's needs, you can download the all about me booklet. It can be filled in electronically or printed off. 

For listed universal short breaks search our family services directory 

Alternatively, you can search via the Local Offer. This brings together information for children and young people with SEND and their families

Early help

In Lincolnshire we believe early help is a collaborative approach, not a provision. Every professional working with or engaging with children and families, regardless of organisation, status or position has a responsibility to deliver early help and support the family to access appropriate services.

Early help is defined as anything that supports children, young people and their families to achieve their potential, by either preventing difficulties, or stopping things getting worse. You may be contacted  by a professional to explore an early help assessment. 

For further information, assessment process and resources please visit Lincolnshire Safeguarding Children Partnership. 

More information about early help assessments

 

 

Children in need

Specialist intervention may be required for children and young people who have a profound and multiple learning disability, who might have difficulties seeing, hearing, speaking, and moving.

Their disabilities will have significantly affected their ability to communicate and be independent compared to children of a similar age without a disability.

They may have complicated health and social care needs due to these or other conditions.

They will need support to help them with some areas of their life, such as eating, washing or personal care. 

Accessing the right level of support

All children and young people with a diagnosis of a disability are entitled to an assessment under The Children Act 1989.

An early help worker or social worker will assess the child or young person’s needs to ensure that the right level of support is provided. 

A social care assessment identifies whether your child will be entitled to specialist services, such as;

  • care support within and outside the home, this could be:
    1. through a direct payment allocation which can be used by the family to pay someone to either come to the house to do activities with the child or young person, or to take the child or young person into the community. 
    2. domiciliary care in the family home and in the community.
  • overnight stays at one of the local authority’s specialist regulated residential homes which are registered and Ofsted inspected to provide outstanding care and support short breaks
  • a specialist activity not requiring parental, carer or guardian attendance
  • a short break with a specially trained foster carer

This additional support is needed by some families because of the nature of the child’s disability, or because of individual family circumstances. 

However, all children with additional needs can access universal provision, listed on our Local Offer and the Family Services Directory

How to arrange an assessment

The customer service team will screen the referrals. If the referral meets the eligibility criteria, the child or young person will be allocated a social worker from the children with disabilities team, who will then be in contact to meet the child or young person and their family to begin the child and family assessment. 

Alternatively, the child or young person may be allocated to our early help service to complete an early help assessment (EHA) or our family assessment support teams (FAST) to complete a social care assessment dependent upon the needs highlighted within the referral and the child and young person’s circumstances. 

The children with disabilities team accept referrals from parents, carers and professionals working with children and young people who have a diagnosed disability that meets the criteria of severe and profound. Parents or carers may prefer to speak to a professional who they know. If this is the case, then this professional can refer the child or young person to the customer services team. 

The child and family assessment is used to decide whether a child or young person under 18, is eligible for social care support services. 

To make a referral please call our customer service centre on 01522 782111 or visit our children's services page

Transition to adulthood

If you are wondering about what happens when you turn 18, don’t worry, if you are already open to a children’s services team, they will submit a referral on your behalf to the adult social care team before you turn 18. 

If you are not sure if this applies to you or  you would like more information please visit our transition to adulthood page

More to offer

Start for life

Lincolnshire’s 48 children's centres are core to our Start for Life offer. The centres offer free stay-and-play drop-in sessions and universal programmes for all families from antenatal to age five. Further support is also available for children and young people 5-19 (25 SEND). Visit your local children’s centre to find out more or visit the website

Send Local Offer

Lincolnshire's Local Offer - find everything you need to know about SEND in one place.  The Local Offer brings together information for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities and their families. 

Early support care co-ordination (ESCO)

ESCO aims to raise the standards of care for children and young people, aged 0-18 who have significant and complex needs and require targeted coordination of services

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The purpose of this statement

This service’s statement is for families living in Lincolnshire who have a child or young person with a disability. It includes information on the purpose of the short breaks services statement and the current range of support available in Lincolnshire.  

The short breaks services statement sets out:

  • the councils duty
  • the criteria by which eligibility for services will be assessed and how to arrange an assessment
  • what short breaks are and how these services are designed to meet the needs of families who have a child or young person with a disability

Our short breaks services statement was developed in partnership with the parent carer forum (LPCF) and Lincolnshire Young Voices to ensure it remains relevant to all. The statement is compliant with The Equality Act 2010 which is used to support the development of suitable provision with appropriate reasonable adjustments.
 

This statement is reviewed regularly and was last reviewed on 1 May 2024

 

 

Definition of a disability

The Equality Act 2010 ('the Act') and Disability Discrimination Act 1995 ('DDA') define a disabled person:
'A person has a disability if they have a physical or mental impairment, and the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on the person's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.'

Our duty

Since 1 April 2011, local authorities must provide short breaks for children and young people who are eligible. This is called the short breaks duty. 

The following legislation is also in place to protect and support children, young people and their families:

We will check this short breaks statement annually to make sure it is up to date and relevant to the local needs of children and young people and their families.