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- disabled/unwell parents should be enabled by the provision of services to take as full part as possible in family life, including caring for their own children
- All casework processes should place parents/carers, children/young people at the centre e.g. they should be given clear information, assessments should be done 'with', not 'to', there should be shared decision-making.
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- Covers the key principles and identification of case responsibility for assessment and service delivery across service boundaries. Includes transfers, closures and dispute resolution.
- Recognises the statutory duties of both adult's and children's services, including safeguarding and young carers' assessments.
- Encourages joint working by the different services in order to reflect the needs of whole families i.e. adults with parenting responsibilities and children who are contributing to care and have developmental needs of their own.
- Recognises that there are different frameworks in place to determine eligibility for service and that consequently families will be key-worked by different teams depending on the level of need of specific family members. However, the policy establishes a duty on all teams to contribute their specific skills and resources on a one-off, short-term or (by negotiation) over a longer period to a family which meets the eligibility threshold of another team.
- For example, a children's assessment team may be working with a family and need input from the physical disability team to assess and support a parent with a degenerative illness. The parent may not yet meet the eligibility threshold in their own right, but his/her condition is affecting the children's physical care and the educational achievement of the oldest child due to his/her growing caring role. The disability team is expected to respond positively to the request of the children's team, contribute to the assessment and provide sufficient services via joint working to achieve the agreed plan for the family. The policy does not prescribe amounts of services, but encourages joint assessments and planning between teams.
- For example, a mental health team is working with a mother following discharge from hospital. The children have been staying with grandmother but their mother now intends to resume their care. The children have been well cared for and have no apparent complex needs, i.e. they do not meet the children's social care threshold. However, the mental health worker recognises that the mother is vulnerable and the family needs support to avoid a relapse. A request is a made to the children's assessment team to carry out a joint assessment so that a package of support from both services can be provided.
- Whilst the policy focuses on social care, it takes into account the roles that other agencies and professionals play. It recognises that teams around the child and professional networks involve inter-agency working in both the adult and children's spheres at tiers 2 and 3. (Example, an adult worker could be part of a Team Around the Child without a children's social worker).
- Action Checklists and procedural flowcharts are provided for both adult's and children's services as hands-on guidance for workers. These enable workers to see how their specialist casework processes can work in an integrated way to achieve joint assessments and plans with families.
- Useful (national) practice guidance is also recommended in the Whole Family Pathway developed by the Children's Society to which Oxfordshire contributed with two other local authorities. This is accessible on the web.
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