Types of short breaks, eligibility, and access
Warwickshire County Council wants to offer the right support at the right time. The eligibility for services and short breaks is based on the following criteria.
Children and young people aged 0-18 with a disability including:
- Learning disability
- Physical disability
- Sensory impairment
- Profound and multiple learning disabilities
- Autistic spectrum conditions
- Mental health needs
- Attention and conduct disorders
- Behaviours that can challenge
- Chronic health condition
This list is indicative and not exhaustive. Children and young people are likely to have needs across many of these areas.
Not all children and families will need the same level of support and short breaks. Some will need more than others because of the type and severity of the child’s disability or because of the individual family circumstances. It is important that your child/young person and their family have the right level and amount of support at the right time.
To see what help might be needed, we will need to do an assessment. The Children with Disabilities Team commit to children and young people having fair access to short breaks. We also want to make sure there are short breaks available across the county.
Types of children short breaks provided in Warwickshire
Universal Services and Enhanced Services
All universal services have a duty to respond to the Equality Act 2010 by ensuring their services are accessible to disabled children and young people. You can find community services local to you in the Warwickshire Directory: SearchOut Warwickshire
These are available to all children and young people with no assessment needed. Examples include:
- Youth clubs
- Uniformed groups, for example cubs and brownies
- Leisure centres
- Activity groups
- Faith groups
There are some situations where a child’s needs are such that the service may not be suitable for their needs or able to accommodate them. If your family is in this situation, then you may be able to access enhanced services described below.
Enhanced Services
These may be specific services for children with disabilities. These come through a referral from:
-
An early help officer
- A professional outside of the children with disabilities team who works with your family and is doing an early help assessment
Please discuss this option with the professionals mentioned above if you think it would be most appropriate for your child.
This may include services provided by our community partners. Whether your child can take part will depend on the numbers and type of group. Most providers offer spaces on a first come first served basis.
Support is also available for young carers via Young Carers Caring Together Warwickshire
This is provided by Carers Trust Heart of England
Targeted support & Specialist support – if eligible after a social care assessment
Targeted
There are specific services for children with disabilities. These services may be available after a SEND social care assessment. Please contact Warwickshire’s Children and Families Front Door service (01926 414144, option 3) to request an assessment of a child’s and your family needs.
How it works:
- SEND social workers do a single assessment
- If the assessment shows this is the right kind of service for your family, they will fill out a resource allocation system (RAS)
The assessment authorisation panel will look at this and discuss it with your family.
Specialist
Some children with disabilities need a lot of support to use short breaks. Specialist services can help. Some children’s needs cannot be met by universal activities as they may need more specialist support. This could be because the child has:
- A severe learning disability
- A severe physical disability
- Profound and multiple disabilities
- Severe sensory impairment
- Complex and severe health problems.
We may sometimes support children with less severe disabilities if:
- A parent carer, carer or those with parental responsibility has a disability or chronic illness
- The impact on the family is severe
- A sibling also has moderate or severe disabilities
To ensure what is the right support for you and your family, we would undertake a Children’s & Families Assessment. The assessment involves gathering information from the family and sometimes other professionals that the family is involved with. It considers:
- The complexity and severity of the disability
- Family circumstances
- Other issues affecting the whole family
The assessment considers all this information using a person-centred approach as each family’s circumstances and needs are unique. The time it takes to complete an assessment can vary depending on the family circumstances, whether other professionals need to be involved, and the complexity and range of information that is gathered to support the assessment.
If assessed as eligible, the assessment leads to an allocation of individually tailored support to meet the assessed needs. The support will be designed to improve specific outcomes for the child and family.
If a child is not eligible for Specialist Short Breaks, we will contact the family and advise them of our decision. Where appropriate, the family may be referred to universal activities or enhanced and targeted short breaks.
Please contact Warwickshire’s Children and Families Front Door service to request an assessment of a child’s and your family needs.
Health respite for Children
Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Care Board commission Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership Trust (CWPT) to provide overnight residential, specialist health respite for children with learning disabilities (or LD and autism). The purpose of the health respite is to support children with learning disabilities and their parents or carer(s) to improved health, wellbeing, and quality of life. The service is also commissioned to support children with a learning disability who are known to the service around crisis response or in an emergency.
The service is provided to children who require nursing/clinical oversight of their care and support, and who have been deemed to be eligible following a joint health and social care assessment. Individuals with the following conditions are eligible for the service:
- Sensory disability (visual or hearing impairment)
- Ill health (chronic medical conditions such as heart disease).
- Developmental delay (including toilet training and motor skills)
- Communication disorders
- Physical disability (Cerebral Palsy, Epilepsy, Muscular Dystrophy)
- Attention and conduct disorders (emotional and behavioural difficulties, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)
- Mental health condition
- Behaviour that is challenging
- Behaviour that causes injury to themselves or to others
Referrals to this provision are through a Multidisciplinary Team allocations panel. Please speak to your allocated health or social care practitioner to find out more.