What is social care?
Our children’s social care teams work with families who need support.
We have a team in each of the district council localities, these are joint teams with health services, Early Help and Family and assessment, support Teams.
Our support ranges from the point of a referral being made, through to a single assessment and, where necessary, into longer term working relationships for ongoing advice, support, guidance and interventions to keep children safe.
We also work closely with our specialist SEND teams including our children with disability service.
We believe that children should live with their own families and family networks whenever it is safe for them to do so. Our practice is underpinned by the value we place on working collaboratively with families with a restorative, holistic whole-family approach to support them in finding their own solutions and building on their strengths.
Support for everyone
There are services which everyone can use. These are known as universal services.
Your GP, your child's school, or early years setting, such as a nursery or preschool, will be able to direct you to services that can support you.
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.
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.
To search for these, please see the family services directory
Young carers
The Lincolnshire Young Carers Service supports young carers up to the age of 19. Young carers may be helping and supporting a family member or friend due to disability, mental ill-health, illness or substance misuse.
A young carer may be providing support with:
- cooking, housework and shopping
- physical care, such as helping someone in and out of bed
- personal care, such as assistance with dressing, toileting and administering medication
- managing the family budget
- collecting prescriptions and arranging GP or hospital appointments
- helping with communication
- looking after brothers or sisters
- emotional support
You can find more information on the family services directory
Early Support Care Coordination aims to raise the standards of care for children and young people, aged 0-18 years. Who have significant and complex needs and require targeted coordination of services.
Services if you need more support
What does this look like in Lincolnshire?
Some children and families will need some additional help for a little while, primarily from one professional or agency to prevent needs escalating.
We refer to this as early help. Early help is to work with families to come to their own solutions to the problems they are facing as early as possible, so we can hopefully work together to stop these getting worse.
Early help can mean one agency primarily supporting the family with concerns, or a number of agencies working together to address the identified needs of the whole family.
The early help offer is not just for very young children as problems may also emerge at any point throughout childhood and adolescence.
The early help offer includes universal and targeted services designed to reduce or prevent specific problems from escalating or becoming entrenched.
Find out more information about our early help offer and team around the child.
Find out more information about short breaks and how you can get help.
Early help assessments
If you’re contacted by early help they will discuss and explore the early help assessment with you
The early help assessment provides a clear template to facilitate a meaningful assessment with the participation of the child, young person, and their parents or carers. It will be completed by a professional who is best placed for the family. This may be a professional who has the best relationship with the family, or who the family feel may have the best knowledge of their needs.
It centres on the key principles of building relationships, honesty, transparency, and appreciative inquiry to focus on the key issues and what needs to happen to improve them.
Some children and their families may benefit, at times, from a coordinated multi-agency approach and a Team Around the Child plan to help identify and address emerging worries, build on existing strengths and access services that can work with the family to help them.
Getting these decisions right can only be achieved by practitioners and families working together, with honest communication, challenge and thorough evidence and evaluation.
Having an assessment
You feel that you require more specialist help and support and the involvement of a social worker to undertake an assessment of need. The child and family assessment is used to decide whether a child or young person under 18, is eligible for social care support services.
How and when to make a referral
A request for an assessment for a child with a disability can be requested via our Customer Services Team by calling 01522 782111
Parent 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. A team member will contact you meet the child or young person and their family to begin the child and family assessment.
Alternatively, the child or young person maybe allocated an early help worker or a social worker from the social care team to undertake an assessment of need.
Preparing for adulthood
From 14 years if your child has an Education, Health and Care plan EHCP) and is in year 9 or above, the annual review should look at preparing for adulthood and the transition pathway.
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 or have an EHCP in place, 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.
If a young person is not currently open to social care, their parent or carer can make a referral to the intake team via adult customer services on 01522 782111