Social Care

Teenage girlSome young people with special needs will start to use adult services between the ages of 18 and 19. For many families this can be quite a jolt, moving from the safe environment of school, children's health care and disability services. So it takes careful planning, alongside professionals involved in your child's support, to make the transition to adult services as smooth as possible.

The professionals involved

As part of the school's transition annual review meeting when your child is 14, the Transition Plan for your child may also include an assessment by a social worker, particularly where he or she has complex needs. You can contact or write to theintegrated children's disability service and inform them about your child's situation, and make them aware that you may be looking for support from adult social care in the future. You could ask them to carry out a 'needs assessment' under the 1989 Children Act, to consider your child's and your family's needs. This would be done by a social worker or a social work resource officer.

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Getting a social care assessments of needs

Once children with special needs reach 18, their support in general becomes the responsibility of local authority adult social care teams in both the City and County. A year before your child leaves school, he or she should have a social care assessment of needs. Your child's school should contact the adult social care team to let them know your child is coming up to school leaving age, and a social worker should make contact. The social care assessment of needs will involve you, your child, schoolteachers, any medical professionals with whom you may have contact and other professionals you may think appropriate. A complete picture of your child should be drawn up, including his or her medical, educational and social circumstances, any particular difficulties he or she has with daily living, and the family's needs for short breaks or respite care. Both your own wishes and your child's hopes for the future should be taken into consideration.

Start early and expect delays

As you can imagine, there can at this point be a clash of interests between what you think best for your child, your child's own views and what resources will permit. Most residential care is very expensive, and your social worker is bound to look at local, most cost-effective solutions before trying further afield. Sometimes funding is provided jointly by adult social care, education or health, and of course getting funds from several sources can be time consuming.

You may not get an appointment for an initial assessment immediately. It's extremely important to think ahead and make sure that assessment starts as early as possible, ideally a year beforeyour childreaches 18. Agreeing the finances and finding the right solution for your child often takes a very long time.

Adult Social Care Services

There are Adult Social Care teams based in both the city and county, you can contact them for a range of services for example:

  • To be a single point of contact for new and existing users of social care services
  • to ask information and advice on the full range of care options
  • to request a simple assessment process designed to resolve people's needs as quickly as possible
  • where needs are more complex, users will be referred to the appropriate team for a more detailed assessment.

All referrals for adult social care should be made via the contact details below depending on where you live.

Nottinghamshire County – please contact your local Adult Social Care team – each district has one. Click for further Social Care team contact details

Nottingham City – Call 0115 8838460, Email – adult.contactteam@nottinghamcity.gov.uk

The Mary Potter Centre
76 Gregory Boulevard
Hyson Green
Nottingham
NG7 5HY
United Kingdom

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Direct payments and individualised budgets

Once a decision has been made about how much support can be provided, a disabled young person may be able to use direct payments. This system gives disabled adults more choice and flexibility about how they organise their support to live independently. Although it won't be suitable for everybody it may mean that a disabled person can control how they spend the budgetadult social carehas allocated to them. For example, they could choose to employ their own support workers or personal assistants rather than having to use social care or agency staff who may be bound by rigid timetables or rules about what they can and can't do.

The Carers and Disabled Children's Act 2000 gives parents the right to direct payments as well. See Direct Payments in the Money matters section of this site for more information. Local disability organisations are now providing advice, support and information to people who want to choose this option, so a disabled young person can talk to people who know the pros and cons of organising support and care in this way. Even if it's not suitable for your son or daughter now, it may be something for them to consider in future, especially as it will hopefully become more easily available as time goes on.

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What if you aren't happy with the assessment?

If you aren't satisfied with the assessment by adult social care,You will need to speak to the personwho has undertaken your assessment or review. For Nottingham residents if you are still not happy you can phone the Social Care Complaints Team on 0115 915 0310 For Nottinghamshire residents you need to call the Customer Service Centre on 08449 80 80 80 and ask to speak to the Adult Social Care Team.

Associations like Disability Nottinghamshire and the Carers Federation may be able to help you. You have the right to ask for a review of the assessment, and to ask someone to advise you or act on your behalf. If all else fails and you still disagree with your child's assessment or how social care intends to meet his or her needs, you may choose to go through a formal complaints procedure.