3.3.3 Shared Care |
AMENDMENT
Section 3, Accessing the Service/Matching was revised in January 2010 to clarify the placement and matching arrangements for eligible children and young people
Contents
1. Introduction
Shared Care is a service that offers short breaks to children with disabilities or complex health needs . Its aim is to provide new experiences and friendships for the child and a break for the person who is the permanent carer. The care is provided by ordinary families who have been registered as foster carers and have had specific training in disability issues. The care could be for a few hour a day, an overnight or a weekend in the carers home or a sitting service in the child’s home .The care would usually be on a regular basis perhaps once a week or once a month according to the needs of the child. The need for the care and the frequency would be established by an Assessment Report compiled with the family by a local authority care management team.
2. Approval of Carers
The Shared Care Carers who do overnight and day care go through the same approval process as other Bradford foster carers and use the same Panel . People offering a sitting service go through a similar process but do not go to panel and are approved by the scheme manager. See Assessment and Approval of Foster Carers Procedure
3. Accessing the Service/Matching
The scheme offers a service to children or young people who either have a severe disability or complex health need . An assessment should establish the need for the service. A referral should then be discussed with the scheme Senior Care Manager or in their absence a duty social worker. The discussion would check the eligibility of the proposed user, the capacity of the scheme to meet the need and possible alternative services. The referral in the form of an Assessment report and Care Plan would go to the Disability Referral Meeting. This meeting would agree whether Shared Care was the most appropriate service or suggest another option. The child's social worker would enter the details of the service onto ICS.
The team SCM would allocate the referral to a social worker who would visit the child and their family. The social worker would then take the case to the next matching meeting to discuss an appropriate short break carer. If a carer is suggested they would be approached with the details of the child and the required service. An introductory meeting is then arranged and if both parties want to proceed a plan for visits arranged . If overnight care is part of the plan a planning meeting would take place before the first overnight stay to ensure the young person was ready. Those attending would be the child's SW, the scheme SW the child /young person and a parent, it would normally be chaired by the Social Workers line manager.
There can be a delay if an appropriate carer is not available. If a child is not matched within 3 months the case will be referred back to the child's social worker.
4. Reviews/Visits
The first review takes place after 7 visits or 3 months (which ever comes first) then 6 monthly thereafter. There would be visits to the child in placement and to the link carer to discuss their views on how the placement is progressing. The former is done by the child’s social worker the latter by the scheme social worker. The parent of the person using the scheme plays a central role in planning and reviewing the service monitoring their child’s reactions to the service and keeping all parties informed of any changes i.e. school medication etc.
The service does try to be as flexible as possible and parents or young people can contact their link family to change arranged dates as long as they remain within the overall number of days allocated .The scheme does have link carers with adapted properties that accommodate wheelchair users and children with complex health needs and has carers with experience of caring for children on the autistic spectrum.
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