Referral and assesment
We have a specialist social work team for children with disabilities whose role is to support the families of disabled children in their task of bringing up their child.
The team can’t respond to every child who may have some degree of impairment. The role of the team is with those children and young people who have a "permanent and substantial" impairment. This means:
- Those children and young people who will have a lifelong need for service
- Those children and young people with complex needs, requiring input from a number of agencies
- Those children and young people who have a life limiting or life threatening condition
If you feel that you need some support and you meet this criteria, you can refer yourself, or ask a professional you are involved with, to make a referral to us. All our referrals go to our intake team at our offices at Laygate.
To contact our Referral and Assessment team, you can call in or write to them at 38 Laygate Place, South Shields, NE33 5RT, or you can ring on 0191 456 4473.
The duty worker at the intake team will take your details, and will make a judgement if you need to be referred on for services.
If you do they will pass your details on to the Children with Disabilities team, based at Jarrow Town Hall.
You will be allocated a social worker, who will work with you to make an assessment of your needs, as you cannot be offered a service unless we know exactly what are the needs of you and your child.
The role of the team is:
- To receive appropriate referrals
- To respond by undertaking an assessment of need
- To develop a care plan
- To implement care plan
- To review care plan
- To plan for transitions to adult services
> More on the services we provide
