Supporting families
The Children's Service are responsible for:
- helping children to stay safely in their own families
- providing specialist services to disabled children (including occupational therapy)
- supporting families with mental health difficulties
- helping to prevent young children from committing crimes through the Youth Offending Service
- preventing young people from re-offending.
The following teams have a key role in providing the above services:
- Referral and Assessment Teams
- Children in Need Teams
- Hospital Social Work Team
- Disabled Children's Team
- Adolescent Resource Team
- Family Resource Team
Referral and Assessment Teams
We currently have three Referral and Assessment Teams.These three teams share a duty system, which is the first point of contact for members of the public and professionals from other agencies.
The Referral and Assessment Teams where appropriate carry out Assessments of need and provide brief intervention and support to children in need and their families.They are involved in initial work such as;
- child need
- child protection
- legal proceedings
- working with children that may need to be looked after by the local authority.
The Referral and Assessment Teams work in conjunction with other agencies, such as health and education in order to provide the most appropriate services for children and families. Working in partnership with other agencies means that any children and families needs can more effectively be assessed and met.
How to get support from the Referral and Assessment Teams
Children and families who need support can contact us during the week between 9am and 12:30pm. Urgent referrals can also be taken between 12.30-5.15pm Monday-Thursday and 12.30-5pm on Fridays.
Our contact details are:
- telephone: 020 8359 4066 or 020 8359 4097.
- email: Dutyfrontdesk@barnet.gov.uk
Urgent out -of-hours referrals should be made to the emergency duty social worker by telephoning 0208 359 2000. Members of the public who would like to report any concerns in respect of a child should also contact us about their concerns.
There is also a Consultation Line for professionals which is available Tuesday and Wednesday 9.30-11.30am on 0208 359 4336. This is available for consultation and advice only and not for making referrals.
Aswell as contacting us directly, parents or concerned professionals can liase with educational staff, and talk to a child’s teacher. Parents can also talk to their child’s health visitor or any other professional who will pass on any relevant information to us
In cases where children and their families may require support from a number of agencies but do not have complex needs, professionals should consider completing a CAF assessment. Advice and support with this can be obtained by telephoning the Consultation Line above or speaking to the CAF advisor on 0208 359 4406.
If you are a child or young person and have any worries or concerns and would like advice or support, you should speak to your teacher, or school nurse. If you feel that you need the support of a social worker, you can contact us at the number given above to talk to a social worker.
The social worker may need to speak to your school and even to your parents to offer you the support that you and your family need. Sometimes social workers may not speak to your parents if they do not feel that it is in your best interests.
Children's Hospital Social Work Team
This is a specialist team accepting referrals from hospital based services, including midwifery. Referrals are also accepted from the police following incidents of domestic violence if an unborn child is involved. In addition, the team is responsible for any child in the accident and emergency department of a hospital or admitted to a hospital or unit based in Barnet and any child, normally resident in Barnet, admitted to any other hospital.
Specialist areas of work include working with families infected or affected by HIV or AIDs and working with pregnant women who wish to relinquish their babies for adoption; the team will also manage the adoption process for the baby.
As a referral team the majority of the interventions are brief and include the same range of work as the Referral and Assessment Teams.
This team should not be contacted directly by the public for support or intervention.
Children In Need Teams
We currently have four Children In Need Teams which provide services to vulnerable children and their families including children on the Child Protection Register.
The Children In Need Teams take cases from the Referral and Assessment Teams and develop plans to progress assessments and further understand the needs of children and their families. This enables the Children In Need Teams to provide specific support for individual families. While the Referral and Assessment Teams provide brief intervention, the Children In Need Teams provide more in-depth work for children and their families.
The Children in Need Teams are also involved in legal work, child protection and in-depth assessments. Additionally, these teams work in partnership with other agencies, such as health, education and other agencies, such as Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.
Accessing support from a Children In Need team
Families and children and referred to the Children in Need Team by the Referral and Assessment Team. These teams should not be contacted directly by the public for support or intervention.
Adolescent resource team
This service is based at 34-36 Woodhouse Road, North Finchley, N12 0RG The Adolescent Resource Team (ART) is a preventative service for young people aged 11-16 years and their families, where the referred young person is assessed as 'in need' and is on the threshold of becoming 'looked after' by the local authority.
The work at ART is carried out by qualified counsellors, systemic practitioners and social workers and is supported by fortnightly individual supervision, regular co-working supervision and fortnightly clinical consultations.
The services provided by ART are as follows:
- provision of group and family work services to young people, their families and carers, which facilitates change so that young people can be safely sustained within their own families, established networks and communities, as appropriate
- offers intensive family work and individual sessions on an outreach basis to families in their own homes with the aim of preventing family breakdown, reducing the need for some young people becoming 'looked after' by the local authority
- aims to build on strengths and assist families in identifying goals and finding their own solutions
- works with families to reduce risk and so enabling the removal of young people from the child protection register
- offers regular office based surgeries to families, this provision is mainly reserved for referral families on ART's waiting lists and those in crisis
- work with families who have complex needs, provision of therapeutic interventions including some co-working with CAMHS/BAS
- provision of specific support to parents of adolescents, both within ART's family and group work services
- provision of wide-ranging group work programme that is relevant to to the needs of young people and their families, which:
- works with the experience and feelings of young people.
- promotes social inclusion
- is accessible to those at lower and higher thresholds of need.
- works with issues of diversity.
- supports and develops the parenting capacity of parents of teenagers.
- promotes service user participation.
- provision of a weekly young people's drop in service accessible to those currently receiving a service, those who have received services in the past and those on the waiting list.
- provision of a weekly parents/carers drop in support service and (alternate weeks) structured group work sessions on developing skills in parenting. The drop-in is an open group and open to all parents involved in any of ART's services. The structured sessions involve a closed group, which will be part of a rolling programme.
The main criteria for using this service is:
The young person must be referred to this service by the Referral and Assessment Team and not directly from families or external agencies.
- The referred young person must be aged between 11-16 years and be on the threshold of becoming 'looked after' by the local authority.
- ART places an emphasis on resolving relationship issues through family work, so it is important that parents/carers agree to work with ART as well as the young person.
The Family Resource Team
The social workers in the Family Resource Team undertake specialist assessments of parenting capacity where there are significant concerns for the welfare of the children. The team also has family support workers who undertake short term intervention within the home to support families with their parenting skills. It offers a service to referred families with children up to the age of 12 years.
Referrals are taken from the social work teams within the Children’s Service and not directly from the public.
Children, young people and families
Email this pageLast modified by: Steve Lawlor on 26/01/2010