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
- Disabled Children's Team
- Adolescent 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 provide brief intervention and support to children in need and their families and perform initial work such as:
- child protection
- legal proceedings
- working with children that are 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 the duty teams during the week between 9am and 12:30pm. The contact details for the teams are:
- telephone: 020 8359 4066 or 020 8359 4097.
- email: Dutyfrontdesk@barnet.gov.uk
Members of the public who would like to report any concerns in respect of a child should also contact the Referral and Assessment Teams about their concerns.
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 the Children's Service.
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 the Children's Service 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 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.
Disabled Children’s Team:
The Disabled Children’s Team provides specialist services to children that meet the criteria for support and intervention. This team delivers services to children in need and their families, looked after children and children in need of protection and those children with a disability or a substantial health or medical condition.
The Disabled Children’s Team work in a multi-disciplinary way, which includes social workers working closely with carers, statutory and voluntary agencies and health and education.
Accessing support from the Disabled Children’s Team:
This team operates a duty system that runs on Monday, Thursday and Friday from 9:30 – 4:30pm. The contact details for this team are:
- telephone: 020 8359 4246
- email: shilpa.patel@barnet.gov.uk.
The Disabled Children’s Team follows a criteria before providing a service and will need to assess any children and families before taking action. If your child does have a disability but does not meet this team’s criteria, they will be referred to the Referral and Assessment Teams who will complete an initial assessment. The team can also sign post you to other agencies who can help you even if you do not meet our criteria or where you are already receiving support. In addition, parents of disabled children can register their child on the Disabled Childrens Register which has a range of benefits including a quarterly newsletter and an ID card for the child.
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.
Related Service Area Information: Children and Families - Supporting Families Division
Children, young people and families
