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Kirklees Council’s Children with a Disability Service Short Breaks Statement
Kirklees Council’s Children with a Disability Service Short Breaks Statement
Index
- Introduction
- Jargon Buster
- What is a short break?
- Activities and Services available to families
- Making sure activities and services meet your child’s and their family’s needs
- How do we know what parents, carers and young people want?
- Reviewing our Short Breaks Statement
1. Introduction
Our short breaks statement explains how we support parents and carers of children and young people from birth up to the age of 18 with learning and/or physical disabilities and additional needs. It describes the kinds of short breaks that are available and how to get access to them. “Children” within this document refers to all 0 to 18-year olds.
Short breaks aim to provide these opportunities. Depending on the needs of the child, young person and carer, provision can range from an hour’s activity a few times a week with a support worker to help access universal services in the community, ranging to a number of overnight breaks each year for those children and young people with complex needs.
2. Jargon Buster
When talking about Education, Health and Social Care, we tend to use a lot of jargon, we will always try to use plain and simple language however, we do understand that no matter how hard we try, some of the language we use can be confusing. Hopefully, our Jargon Buster at the end of this document will help explain some of the terms we use.
3. What is a Short Break?
Kirklees Council provide a range of activities and services to help the whole family to experience a break from the additional demands they experience when caring for someone with a disability, these breaks are often referred to as a short break and come in many different forms.
There is a wide range of social opportunities available to all children and young people in the borough, including disabled children: these are called Universal Services. Additionally, Short Break provision is available to children or a young person with a disability aged 0 – 18 years of age.
Some children require an assessment to ensure we are securing good outcomes and families are getting sufficient support for parents caring for a child with a disability. All families with a child with a disability are entitled to an assessment of need. The assessment will consider each case on an individual basis, taking into account all of the family circumstances.
A “Short Break” is to help a family to provide care and give them a break from their caring responsibilities, helping parents to catch up with everyday activities, improving their wellbeing and maintaining and developing social networks. It also benefits children by providing them with new interests, relationships, and activities.
Short breaks are different to childcare, or the time children spend at school, and there are lots of different types of short breaks which can last anything from an hour to several days. Short break activities can provide a range of opportunities for children with a disability, helping them benefit from new experiences, to have fun, meet new people and make friends, whilst giving parents a much needed break.
4. Activities and Services available to families
4.1 Community based leisure activities.
These are available for all children and enable them to take part in fun activities. These activities are often referred to as universal or mainstream activities and often take place in your local community.
There are a wide range of activities available to children and young people, some may be experienced at supporting children with a disability whilst others strive to be inclusive.
Who delivers this activity?
These activities are often provided by organisations such as the Scouts, Girl Guides, Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme as well as local Community Groups and Leisure centres
For more information about these types of activities please see the directory on our Local Offer
4.2 Community based leisure activities specifically for disabled children.
These are often referred to as targeted activities and take place in the evenings, at weekends and during the school holidays and assist carers to take a break from their caring role, whilst giving a child an enjoyable activity to do.
Who delivers this activity?
These activities are often provided by community groups who are experienced in providing activities to children with a disability.
Some will have received funding from Kirklees Council, whilst others may be run by parents or charitable organisations.
For more information about these types of activities please see our Local Offer
How can your child access
- Community based leisure activities?
- Community based leisure activities specifically for disabled children?
If your child would like to access this type of activity, please contact the individual activity provider directly.
Support to access this type of activity.
Children who face barriers when accessing these types of activity, may benefit from short term introductory support to overcome the barrier.
The following teams may be able to provide introductory support to activities.
- Community Plus Team
- Children with a Disability Service, Early Support, and Inclusion Team
- Community Enablement Team Travel Training.
If this type of support would be of benefit, please have a look at our Local Offer
4.4 Community based leisure activities for children who might have more complex needs.
These are for children who may struggle to access universal and targeted activities.
Who delivers this activity?
These activities can be building based and may be provided by Kirklees Council’s own activity team or domiciliary care providers.
Alternatively, you may be able to use a domiciliary care provider or direct payment worker for your child to enjoy an activity of their choice in the community.
For more information about these types of services please see our Local Offer.
4.5 Daytime care in the home for children who have a disability.
Who delivers this activity?
This type of Short Break can be provided by a domiciliary care provider or direct payment worker and be used to assist families with their day-to-day care routines, this could give parents a break or time to concentrate on siblings.
For more information about these types of services please see our Local Offer
4.6 Overnight care in the homes of a disabled child or elsewhere.
Who delivers this activity?
Overnight care can take place in a residential setting provided by the Local Authority, other provider, or in the home of a foster care family. It can also take place in your own home, with the support of a direct payment or domiciliary care provider.
For further information please see Kirklees Council’s Local Offer
How can your child access.
- Community based leisure activities for children who might have more complex needs ?
- Daytime care in the home for children who have a disability?
- Overnight care in the homes of a disabled child or elsewhere?
To be able to access these types of services, your child will need to have an assessment of needs completed by the Children with a Disability Service. All families with a child who has a disability are entitled to an assessment of need. The assessment will establish whether your child is eligible for this type of service.
Please see our eligibility criteria, information for more information (opens link in same window).
To discuss accessing these types of provision, please call Kirklees Council’s Duty and Advice Team who can be contacted by telephoning 01484 456848
4.7 The Local Offer
5. Making sure activities and services meet your child’s and their family’s needs
Kirklees Council fund a range of community activities and services to meet the needs of local families with disabled children.
To ensure the needs of local families are met, Kirklees Council consider if the activities and services we fund:
- Offers a variety of choice to families.
- Provides opportunities that are empowering for children and young people who have a disability.
- Provides opportunities in environments that meet the needs of children and young people who have a disability.
- Provides opportunities that suit different communication and medical needs.
- Provides activities in a variety of locations and at a variety of times.
- Enables children and young people with a disability to be included where their needs or behaviour may ordinarily have been a barrier.
- Ensures staff are knowledgeable about the needs of children and young people who have a disability.
- Provides good, timely and easy to read information about the activity
6. How do we know what parents, carers and young people want?
Kirklees Council’s Children with a Disability Service works hard to adjust and improve services to meet the needs of children and young people in Kirklees.
Consultation is our key focus, we do that by working closely with PCAN, parents, carers and young people to understand what is working well, what is not working and how things can be improved.
The voices of children and young people are extremely important, and we have been able to use our young people’s participation groups to help us understand what is important to them and ensure that we take this into account when developing new services.
We will continue to explore new ways to understand what is important to parents, carers, children, and young people. This will include talking to children, parents and carers in various settings to understand what is important to them.
7.Reviewing our Short Breaks Statement
Kirklees Council constantly reviews our Short Break Statement and where appropriate will revise it as the services and needs of local families change.
Date of last review 30/11/2022
You can download a PDF version of this information here if needed (downloads PDF File)
Jargon Buster
Activities - Somewhere children can go and play
Activity - Provider A person or group that runs an activity
Assessment -The way of working out what your unmet needs are
Carer - A person who provides unpaid support for your child, they might a family member a partner, neighbour, or friend.
Children’s with a Disability Service - A team that carry out assessments for families of children with a disability to identify unmet needs
Community - A group of people who have something in common or live in the same place.
Community Plus - A team in the council that help families to contact and attend activities.
Disabled - A term used to describe a condition that is ongoing and affects how someone may think, learn, sense what is around them or their physical ability to do something
Education, Health and Social Care - A general term used to describe the different support young people and families may use
Eligibility Criteria - A way of identifying which services will meet your needs
Inclusive - Where everyone feels comfortable, respected, and can take part.
Local Authority - An organisation that is officially responsible for all public services in a particular area.
Participation - Taking part in an activity or decision
PCAN - Parents of Children with Additional Needs is the independent, parent-led forum for all parents and carers of children and young people with additional needs aged from birth to 25 years.
Provider - Someone who offers a service or activity for children with a disability
Short Breaks - Short breaks come in many different forms and can last anything from an hour to several days. They are different to childcare and education and offer a range of activities for children with a disability which help children to learn and benefit from new experiences, while giving parents and families a much needed break from caring responsibilities.
Short Break Statement - The Short Break Statement is to let parents know who can access short breaks, what short breaks are available to young people and their families in Kirklees and which short breaks will best meet their child’s needs.
Targeted Activities - Activity groups with an understanding of disability
The Local Offer - The Local Offer provides information on what services children, young people and their families can find in Kirklees.
Universal Activities - Activities that all young people might attend.
Unmet Needs - The things that stop you carrying out every day basic living activities.