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Guide to Children's Integrated Services

• Making a Referral
• Introduction from Anne Binney - Head of Integrated Services to Children, Young People & Families
• Children's Integrated Services Structure Chart  (79.63 KB)

Access Centre Children's Team (ACCT)

The Access Centre responds to all contact made for the purposes of accessing targeted and specialised services to children in need and their families, and concerns about children who may be at risk of harm and need protection (Children Act, 1989).

The contact may be made by members of the public, other Council staff or by a range of external agencies.

The Access Centre Children's Team will provide advice and information and pass on to the FAS Teams any requests for service that potentially meet the threshold for targeted and specialist, family support and safeguarding services and also records any requests for service made via the Integrated Area Teams.

The Service is delivered in partnership with the Worcestershire Hub.

Professional Support to ACCT - The Professional Support Manager and Senior decide on appropriate action and ensure the consistency of approach from the Access Centre Children's Team. They provide professional social work advice and promote and develop the work of Integrated Children's Services with partner organisations and community groups.

Making a Referral

Integrated Area Teams

The  Integrated Area Teams work in 3 area bases across the County, offering targeted services to children in need as well as co-ordinating and providing earlier intervention, educational psychology and welfare services to schools and other settings when needs are identified. Services are provided on the basis of assessed need. Our primary aim is to support children and young people within their families and communities. For most children and young people, their lifelong needs will be best met in this way. For those children and young people with a Child & Young Person's Plan, a Child Protection Plan or a Looked After Child Plan, partner agencies work together to minimise risks and improve outcomes. Where children and young people are accommodated, the aim is to return them to the care of their family as soon as possible. The safety and welfare of children and young children remains paramount and where children and young people are unable to be cared for safely by their families, our aim is to ensure they have an alternative, secure, permanent home. Each Area will contain the following Teams:

Family Assessment & Support Team (FAST) - These teams of Social Workers, Social Work Assistants and Family Support Workers take all new social care referrals from the Access Centre Children's Team (ACCT) for children who potentially meet the threshold as a Child in Need - Tier 3 services (Children Act, 1989). The Team undertake all initial and core assessments and Child Protection enquiries, and formulate plans with families to meet identified needs. Targeted family support is aimed at prevention of family breakdown, safeguarding and swift reunification of children who are looked after, where possible.

Children & Families Teams (C&F) - For longer-term interventions, Social Workers and Social Work Assistants will be the key professionals focusing on progressing Child Protection Plans, Looked After Children Plans and more complex Child & Young People's Plans, to ensure children can remain or be returned to their families safely, or plan for a secure alternative permanent home where this is not possible.

Community & Education Teams (CET) - Educational Psychologists (EPs), Education Welfare Officers (EWOs) and Family Support Workers (FSWs) in this Team will work closely with the other Area Teams providing advice and guidance in respect of individual children and young people, and in partnership with schools and other educational settings in the community. Their focus is to provide advice and support from EWOs to ensure attendance is maintained and to identify any support or concerns at an early stage; to provide support and guidance from EPs to promote best practice and raise achievement and outcomes for the setting as a whole and for individual pupils; and to ensure a continuation of Family Support Services where further assessment or advice and support is required to progress a child's plan to maintain or return a child to their family.

CAF Co-ordinator - This Service will assist with the co-ordination of the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) in each area, providing advice and guidance to those completing a CAF and ensuring pathways between Tier 3 and earlier preventative services - Tier 2. The CAF Co- ordinator will be able to supervise and/or guide the development of Family Support Workers employed in other settings, e.g., schools. They will also recruit up to 3 Community & Family Support Workers in each Area to provide Tier 2 services when additional needs are identified. The CAF Co-ordinator will work closely with Extended Services and Children's Centres in their area to ensure a "bridge" between Tier 2 and universal services - Tier 1.

Social Care Services
Social Care Services work with children who have complex needs who require statutory services in order to ensure that their welfare is not significantly impaired and to ensure that they are protected from significant harm.

Social Care professionals are responsible for assessing those needs and working in partnership with children and their families to make a plan to meet those needs.

A multi-agency plan is still usually required to support children with such complex needs, although the lead professional responsible for co-ordinating support is more likely to be from one of the statutory agencies.

The following groups of children will have a Social Care lead professional and will need a high level of interagency support to achieve good outcomes, particularly in terms of safeguarding, health and educational outcomes:

• Children who are subject to a Child Protection Plan
• Children in need
• Children who are looked after
• Young people leaving care
• Children for whom adoption is the plan

Social Care professionals also work in other Teams and will be the lead professional:

• Children with complex disabilities or health needs (Chldren with Disabilities Teams)
• Children diagnosed with significant mental health needs (CAMHS)
• Young offenders involved with Youth Justice Services (Youth Offending Service)

Family Support Service
This Service provides the professional lead for Family Support Services - promoting and supporting early intervention with families in the community, and targeted services provided to children and young people at greater risk of harm or family breakdown, or with more complex and enduring needs. The Service includes a Family Contact Service and a Support Care Service.

Family Contact Service - The Family Contact Service is a countywide service. The principle aim of the Service is to maintain safe regular contact between children who are Looked After and their parents, siblings and significant other family members, usually whilst assessments are being completed or during the course of court proceedings. The Service is commissioned by the Integrated Services Teams.

Support Care Service - Support Care is accessed through the Area Integrated Teams and is provided as part of a Child & Young Person's Plan. The scheme offers children and young people time managed day-care, overnight or weekend care with an approved foster carer. The aim is to enable children and young people to remain with their families and to prevent the need for them to become looked after on a full-time basis.

Educational Psychology Service
Educational Psychologists are largely employed by Local Authorities (LAs). They work with children from birth to 19 years, in many different settings – home, nursery, primary and secondary schools, special schools or units, social care provisions, and hospitals. In the course of their work they regularly liaise with other professionals within Health and children's services.

Education Welfare Service
The Education Welfare service provides a range of services relating to school attendance and child employment, which currently include consultancy, advice, training and direct intervention through casework. The service has delegated powers to act as investigators on behalf of the county council and to instigate legal proceedings against parents and employers who fail to meet their legal obligations.

• Making a Referral
• Publications

Children with Disabilities

This Service comprises of six Integrated Services - Specialist Support Teams, two specialist Social Work Teams for Children with Disabilities, two Short Break Residential Units and family and community based short-break services commissioned from Barnardo's for children with disabilities, staff seconded to WF PCT at the Child Development Centre, and therapeutic Social Workers within the Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS).

The key aim of the Service is to safeguard and promote the welfare and achievement of children and young people with disabilities and complex health needs by strengthening and supporting families, supporting education and making effective use of statutory and voluntary sector resources.

Specialist Social Work Teams
Within Worcestershire there are two specialist social work teams who support children with permanent and substantial disabilities / complex health needs and their families.  The team for North Worcestershire, which covers Bromsgrove, Redditch and Wyre Forest is based at County Buildings, Windsor Street, Bromsgrove.  The team for South Worcestershire, which covers Malvern, Worcester City and Wychavon is based at Bridgewater House, Worcester.

Both teams offer support and assessment of need, as well as providing the full range of statutory childcare duties. The primary aim of the teams is to provide supportive care packages based on the assessed needs of the child and family, including the needs of carers and siblings. In doing this the teams work closely with the child/young person and the family as well as a range of other workers from the statutory and voluntary sector where this is required.

Some agencies and groups we currently work closely with include Health Visitors, Community Nurses, School Nurses, Paediatricians, Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, Speech and Language Therapists, Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCO’s), schools, Early Years and Childcare service, Barnardo’s Short Breaks, Malvern Special Families, Acorns Hospice, the Orchard Service, Sensory Impairment Team, Children’s Specialist Support Service, Connexions and the Adult Social Services Transitions social workers.

At the present time over 400 children are known to the Social Services Children with Disability Teams and receiving services directly or indirectly.

Shortbreaks Service
There are currently over 220 children in receipt of short breaks in Worcestershire and we are continuing to develop services in conjunction with our partner agencies.

The Government has given all local authorities extra money for the development of short breaks under its 'Aiming High for Disabled Children' programme 2008 - 11. The County Council will work with children and young people, parents\carers and agencies to plan for the best use of our extra funding.

All short break services (previously known as respite care) provided directly by Children's Services in Worcestershire or commissioned by them are subject to an assessment of need.

Children and young people are then considered by our Short Breaks Panel, which comprises members of Children's Services, Barnardos Early Years and Health services, who try and identify the most appropriate resource to meet their identified needs. The Panel will take into account parent/carer wishes and any separate assessment of their needs that has been completed.

All our service provides are signed up to a core set of Children's Services work in partnership with our Health colleagues and Barnardos and our joint aim is to make the best use of available short break resources and to ensure fair access to services.

Integrated Services - Specialist Support
ISSS is a specialist teaching service which offers support to parents, carers, early years settings and schools on a range of needs.

The Hearing Impairment Team supports children and students who are deaf and hearing impaired. They provide:

• audiological and educational advice as well as a peripatetic teaching service strategies to develop and promote independence.

The Visual Impairment Team supports children, pupils and students with:

• a visual impairment which cannot be corrected by glasses and provides strategies to develop & promote independent learning.

The Multi-Sensory Impairment Team supports children and pupils who are:

• deaf/blind and have a combination of vision/hearing loss, which creates a unique pattern of learning difficulties or who have substantial developmental delay in responding to sensory stimuli
• pupils with a sensory loss and additional disabilities.

The Medical Education Team supports pupils with:

• medical difficulties which prevent them from attending school and which are evidenced by a written request for support from a medical consultant.

The Complex Communication Difficulties/Autism Team supports pupils and students with:

• complex communication difficulties, or an autism spectrum condition, primarily in mainstream school environments, at the Action Plus and Statemented stage of the SEN Code of Practice.

The Assistive ICT & Alternative and Augmentative Communication Team supports pupils with:

• limited verbal communication where an augmentative communication system may be appropriate
• a severe difficulty in recording text, diagrams or pictures, which may warrant the use of assistive ICT.

The Further & Higher Education Team supports post 16 learners with:

• a sensory impairment or autistic spectrum disorder, in colleges throughout Worcestershire and other counties, via college service agreements or the individual disabled students allowance

Looked After & Adopted Children's Services

Looked After and Adopted Children's Services (LAAC) is a county-wide service providing specialist support and services to looked after and adopted children and their carers and families. LAAC Services focus on "whole system" approaches in order to improve life chances for looked after and adopted children in a variety of placements and settings. Working in partnership across Children's Services and with partner agencies, voluntary and community sectors from early years to adulthood is an essential part of our "core" business. The LAAC sector is made up of 4 areas of service - Residential Services, the Fostering Service, the Adoption Service and the Integrated Service for Looked After and AdoptedChildren (ISL).

Fostering Services
There are 4 Teams in this service - 2 foster care teams providing supervision support and information to foster carers in order to maintain secure, safe and stable placements; aplacement and panels team managing duty systems and requests for placements for fostering andresidential placements and administration and function of fostering panel, and the Adoption and Fostering Development Team, which has responsibility for recruitment, training and development of foster carers and adoptive parents and provides support for first year of approval.

Adoption Services
This service is made up of 2 teams - the County Adoption Team which assesses and supports adoptive applicants, finds families for children where adoption is the plan and provides post placement and post order support; and the Adoption Support Team responsible for post-Adoption or Special Guardianship Order support to adulthood, to all parties in the adoption and Special Guardianship process. The adoption and fostering team recruits, prepares and provides training for prospective adopters.

Residential Services
There are 5 children's homes offering 25 in-house residential placements. The new children's home, Green Hill Lodge, opened in April 2007, initially for 6 young people who would otherwise require specialist external residential placement. The high occupancy rates of our residential services (94% April 2007) has led to a capital request for funding to replace a medium-stay home in Redditch. The existing home has had registration extended until the end of 2007.

Integrated Services for Looked After & Adopted Children (ISL)
ISL is a multi-agency, holistic service providing additional support to looked after and adopted children in order to ensure maximum life chances are gained from education, health, community and leisure opportunities and positive and stable social care. ISL is multi-disciplinary with colleagues from a range of professional backgrounds including Health, Education and Social Care. There are 3 teams within ISL, Teams 1 and 3 focus on educational achievement and inclusion and community and leisure opportunities and Team 2 focuses on health and well-being and stable and secure living environments for looked after and adopted children.

• ISL -Guide for Children & Young People  (205.52 KB) (print only)
• ISL - Guide for Children & Young People  (487.88 KB) (read only)
• Publications