How and when to make a referral
The children with disabilities team accept referrals from parents and professionals working with children and young people who have a diagnosed disability that meets the criteria of severe and profound.
Parents may prefer to speak to a professional who they know.
The professional can refer the child or young person to the customer services team. The referrals are screened; if they meet the eligibility criteria of severe and profound and requires the involvement of a specialist team.
Then the child or young person will then be allocated a social worker from the children with disabilities team, who will be in contact to meet the child or young person and their family to begin the child and family assessment.
The child and family assessment is used to decide whether a child or young person under 18, is eligible for social care support services.
The children with disabilities team have adopted the signs of safety as the basis of their work with children and families and across all partner agencies engaged in providing services for children in Lincolnshire.
Signs of safety is a strength based, solution focused model which looks identifying the strengths and needs of children, young people and their families. The model considers the level of need of children and young people and what support is available. The assessment will review the support needs of parent carers and any other children in the family who provide care through a young carers assessment.
The assessment considers whether the child is eligible to receive a social care service or if universal services are needed to meet the needs of the child/ young person. Parents are also encouraged to have their parent carer needs assessed via a carers assessment.
The social workers within the children with disabilities teams work in partnership with other service providers including health, schools, education and the voluntary sector to ensure a holistic package of support is agreed to meet the assessed needs.
It is recognised the needs of a disabled child and their family change from time to time. There will be times when more support is needed, therefore, all care plans and packages of support are reviewed on a regular basis to ensure the level of provision is right and the child is making positive progress.
If a child or young people and their families are able to meet their own support needs, they are encouraged and supported to do so. A social work assessment is not required. There are a wide range of directly accessible services and sources of support which are listed above but can also be accessed via the Local Offer pages.
