Adult Social Services
Enabling Parents with Disabilities or Long-Term Illnesses
Reference: 062 Published: 1 October 2014 Status: Under review Version: 1.01 Reviewed: — Owner: John Holden
Click here to access the joint protocol
This document provides an updated, revised version of the joint protocol entitled ‘Enabling Parents with a Disability or Long Term Illness’. This was originally introduced in May 2006 and the protocol has been in operation since then. This document should be read together with the protocol, and contains some operational details not contained in the protocol.
The protocol applies to all specialist teams: Children’s Services, including Children with Disabilities Specialist Social Work Diverse Communities Team (for families where a parent or parents have a disability or long term illness) Community Services (Adult Care), including Community Care teams Learning Disabilities (including autism spectrum conditions and Asperger’s) Sensory Support Unit Mental health teams It applies also to all partner agencies who have a role in supporting disabled parents, in order to achieve equality of access and opportunity with non-disabled parents. This includes housing departments, and health and other statutory and voluntary agencies.
This version contains an update of some of the government guidance and legislation, and local processes, such as the Common Assessment Framework for children, the Customer Service Centre – Social Care Centre of Expertise, telephone assessments, and Personal Budgets (Self-Directed Support). The appendices Eligibility Framework & Criteria for Accessing Adult Social Care (table) and Support for Disabled Parents (process diagram) have also been updated.
Consultation line and making an internal referral
A key part of the processes involves the establishment of a designated person with contact details in all teams working with adults to complement those already established in Children’s Services. These persons are responsible for providing professional consultation and provide the link between all adults’ and children’s teams. When Children’s Services are carrying out the assessment, professional consultation line needs to be used in all cases where there is a parent with a disability or long term illness.
The protocol establishes the need for adult workers to consider the needs of the child(ren) of disabled parents and for those working with children to consider the support needs of parents who are disabled. Alleviation of inappropriate caring by the child(ren) of disabled parents (young carers) is a key element.
Adult Care staff, see also CareFirst process maps.
1 October 2014 062, v1.01 Page 1 of 2 Provision of home support services in Community Services (Adult Care)
We need to be able to monitor uptake and expenditure on these services. These services are provided within existing financial resources. For this reason, there are specific, separate subjective codes – 60030 for Direct Payments and 50620 for all other costed services. These codes cover both Children’s Services and Adult Care budgets. They apply to Personal Budgets in the same way. All support that is joint-funded must have two cost centres – the numbers for the relevant Children’s Services and Adult Care teams.
When the outcome of an assessment is the need for Home Support Services, there needs to be a discussion (professional consultation) with the relevant named person in Children’s Services / Adult Care (depending on who initiated the assessment) in the district where the client lives. This is relevant because several of our districts are not coterminus. The purpose of this is to agree the support plan and joint funding. It has been agreed in practice that this funding should be at a level of 50% each. Any disputes should be taken up at the level of line managers, i e team managers, if they are not already involved, and senior managers.
Personal budgets / self-directed support
Children’s Services will need to be approached for consultation after the support plan has been completed. Children’s Services will need to know what their share of the cost is to be spent on. Workers in Adult Care need to be aware, and to ensure that parents are aware, that there may be some things that Children’s Services cannot agree to fund, such as family holidays. Please read the section on Personal Budgets in the protocol.
There needs to be a separate contract (independent sector), or commissioning form (Direct Payments), for the support provided to the adult in their parenting role. These documents must use the above subjective code. The service will be in the name of the adult, and service providers must be informed of the name, age and any other relevant details of the child(ren).
Important note In Adult Care, all independent domiciliary care providers are signed up to provide this service. It is a requirement for all existing and new accredited providers.
Charging policy These services, which are for the child(ren), are not subject to a financial assessment; that is, they are free of charge. This is another reason for keeping separate documentation for these services.
Police checks Workers / carers / assistants employed by the in-house service and by the independent agencies, and who are providing support to disabled parents, are required to have Enhanced DBS checks to include POVA (Protection of Vulnerable Adults) and POCA (Protection of Children Act). Under Direct Payments we cannot, in law, insist that the parent (as the employer) has police checks completed for their personal assistants. However, in these circumstances, social care staff are advised to recommend strongly that such checks are done. The cost of these is met by the department, through the Direct Payments monitoring office.
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