Support from Children and Families Social Work is given from birth to school leaving age. Transition into Health and Social Care Partnership begins from 14+ years onwards, when there are identified needs.
Families should raise their concerns regarding their child’s additional support needs to the Health Visitor or Head Teacher and request a Team around the Child meeting (TATC) if there are one or more services involved with the care of their child. The meeting is a planning forum to recognise where the needs of the child are, and if there are gaps in support for the child.
With parental consent, the Head Teacher or Health Visitor will discuss the need for additional support at a Locality Planning Meeting, where additional supports from universal services or the voluntary sector should be considered in the first instance.
Should the supports from universal or voluntary services not bring the help required a request can be made to Social Work to have a Section 23 Assessment of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995.
“The Local Authority has a duty to carry out an assessment of the child or any other person in his or her family in order to ascertain the child’s needs in so far as they are attributable to his or her disability or that of the other person if asked to do so by the child’s parent or guardian.”
This is a Social Work Assessment completed to assess the needs of the child and family affected by disability. This can take up to 12 weeks to complete if required.
Once the assessment is completed the recommendation is taken to a Resource Panel where a Panel decides what if any additional resources to allocate to the child and his/her family . The family then decide if they would like Option 1-4 of Self-Directed Support to use the hours allocated if agreed by the Group.
This allocation is reviewed as a minimum annually at a Resource Panel.