Joint working for early interventions with young carers

Transcription

1 Joint working for early interventions with young carers Workshop for Adult Service & Children s Service staff April 2012 Christine Slatcher The Children s Society Include Programme

2 Definition Young carers are children and young people under the age of 18 years who provide regular and ongoing care and/or emotional support to a family member who is physically or mentally ill, disabled or misuses substances ADASS and ADCS 2009

3 A young carer becomes vulnerable when the level of care-giving and responsibility to the person in need of care becomes excessive or inappropriate for that child, risking impacting on his or her emotional or physical well being or educational achievement and life chances ADASS/ADCS MOU 2009

4 Impact on the lives of children in the UK? Physical injury/illness Emotional behaviour problems Social isolation/bullying Education low achievement Future life chances -?

5 How many are there? young carers in the UK (2001 census) 3,300 in Hampshire 56% girls: 44% boys Average age 12 56% living in a lone parent family 52% of cared for people are mothers 1 in 10 young carers is caring for more than one person

6 Legislation: Children s Services Children do not care in isolation -they care because someone in their family has unmet care needs The Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families Guidance. (2000) An assessment of family circumstances is essential. Young carers should not be expected to carry inappropriate levels of caring which have an adverse impact on their development and life chances.

7 Legislation: Adult Services Fair Access to Care Services Guidance 2002 All assessments of adults must include a check to find out if there are children in the family Think Local Act Personal (2011) Deliver whole family services in an integrated and flexible way

8 Carers Legislation & Guidance Carers (Equal Op) Act 2004 Practice Guidance No care package should rely on the inappropriate caring role of a child local authorities have a responsibility to ensure that the person needing care has appropriate services and this should include help with parenting tasks

9 Legislation & Guidance Common Assessment Framework Guidance for managers and practitioners Particular regard may need to be given to joint working between children and adult services when CAF has been undertaken specifically because of a child or young persons caring responsibilities Munro Review : A child-centred system (2011) Effective information sharing between agencies is essential. Effective multi-agency working across a wide range of professionals is critical.

10 Hampshire Guidance Hampshire practice Guidance for Adult and Children s Services in supporting young carers within a whole family working model

11 Development of the Guidance Based on National memorandum of understanding between Children s Services and Adult Services Hampshire Multi-agency Consultation in 2009 Consultation with YC Voices

12 Hampshire Guidance no wrong doors whole-family approach Where a parent or another family member has care needs arising from a disability, substance misuse or mental illness that Inappropriate caring is prevented Parents feel supported in their parenting role Transition to adulthood is supported

13 Hampshire Guidance We will develop better ways of identifying where caring by children becomes excessive and/or inappropriate. Pre-empt likely problems and any emerging difficulties can be identified at an early stage.

14 Questions for Adult Services 1. Do you have children? What are their ages? 2. Is there a child in the family who may be helping to provide care? If so, why? 3. What additional support do you need to prevent your child from providing inappropriate care? 4. How can we support you in your parenting role? 5. What can be offered to help the whole family? 6. Does the child need and have they been offered an assessment?

15 Questions for Children s Services 1. Might the child be a young carer? 2. Why is the child caring, what needs to change? 3. Is the family member for whom they are caring already receiving services? 4. Has the person needing care been offered an assessment? 5. What can be offered to support the whole family? 6. Has a CAF been done on the child? Would this be appropriate? Or does the impact on the child indicate that an Assessment of Children in need is required.

16 7 Golden rules for information sharing 1. Understand Data protection legislation is not a barrier to sharing information 2. Be open and honest 3. Seek advice when necessary 4. Share consent where appropriate 5. Consider the child s safety and welfare 6. Gather and keep information that is necessary, proportionate, relevant, accurate, timely and secure 7. Keep a record of information shared.

17 Assessments Assessing the needs of the young carer and the parent in relation to each other is an important part of assessing the needs of the whole family. Assessing the needs of the whole family requires good joint working between all agencies (Adult s Services, Children s Services, Education and Health services) Hampshire guidance states: Joint assessment by adult, children s and health staff will be expected where this is appropriate.

18 Key Principles of Practice Key Principle Two: The key to change is the development of a whole family approach to needs led assessments to ensure that service provision is child focused and family orientated I would like for all professionals to get together and talk about us as a family, rather than as separate individuals

19 Whole family Pathway

20 Whole family Pathway

21 A Free E-learning Programme for NHS health and Social care Professionals. Six interactive educational sessions including Supporting young carers which can be done as a stand alone module.

22 1. Identify services currently offering early intervention and joint working to support families where there is disability/illness. (write in inner circle) 2. Suggest ways of building on the above. (write in 5 outer circles)

23 Task 1 Develop a SMART plan to implement the Hampshire Practice Guidance within the locality What will you do? How will you do it? Who else needs to do it? Task 2 Suggest methods to evaluate the use of the guidance

24 Mum s social worker never talks to me. She ignores me. She doesn t know half of what I do. We need more help so I don t have to do so much. It s wrong she should ask me what I do

25 Contact Christine Slatcher