Legal context for short breaks
The Breaks for Carers of Disabled Children Regulations 2011 and associated Department for Education Advice for Local Authorities provide details of how local authorities are required provide breaks from caring for carers of children and young people with disabilities.
In summary, the regulations require local authorities to:
- ensure that, when making short break provision, they have regard to the needs of different types of carers, not just those who would be unable to continue to provide care without a break;
- provide a range of breaks, as appropriate, during the day, overnight, at weekends and during the school holidays; and
- provide parents with a short breaks services statement detailing the range of available breaks and any eligibility criteria attached to them.
The Department for Education summarises its advice as follows. Local authorities must:
- provide a range of short breaks services;
- give families the choice to access short breaks services using a direct payment
- publish a statement of their short breaks services on their website
- keep their short breaks statement under review;
- state in their short breaks service statement the range of short breaks services available, the criteria by which eligibility for services will be assessed, and how the range of services is designed to meet the needs of families with disabled children in their area;
- consult parents as part of the review of the statement;
- consider the legal implications of the eligibility criteria they apply to short breaks services; and
- not apply any eligibility criteria mechanistically without consideration of a particular family’s needs.
Local authorities should ensure that:
- short breaks are reliable and regular to best meet families’ needs;
- local authorities should try to reach groups of parents who may be more difficult to engage;
- parents are engaged in the design of local short breaks services;
- short breaks can build on and be offered by universal service providers;
- they are working in partnership with health services to understand the range of short breaks services in their area and to train the workforce;
- short breaks promote greater levels of confidence and competence for young people moving towards adult life;
- local authorities should ensure that those who use short breaks services have the chance to shape the development of those services; and
- they continue to develop their workforce in relation to short breaks services. It is good practice for local authorities to ensure that:
- a “local offer” is considered in order to provide families with access to some short breaks services without any assessment;
- formal assessment of families’ needs leads to a tailored package of services for them;
- in preparing the short breaks services they have thought about how best to share information about disabled children between agencies within existing data protection requirements;
- they have considered working together with partners to ensure strategic sign-off and shared accountability locally for the statement and the services it refers to; and
- commissioning is leading to more responsive short breaks services.