Circle of Support - Commissioning Outcomes for Young Carers

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1 Principles: To take reasonable steps to identify the extent to which there are Young Carers within Suffolk and to assess their support needs; To provide Young Carer assessments and plans for Young Carers aged who are in transition to adulthood; To provide personalised and joined up support for Young Carers and their families. This will apply equally across all agencies through partnership working with Adult Services, Health, Education and third sectors, and where local authorities delegate aspects of their assessment processes; To be compliant with statutory legislation to fulfil our duties in support of young carers and young adult carers. Over-arching Outcomes: Increased confidence and self-esteem through the development of transferable skills; Improvements in general health and mental wellbeing; Increased performance at school or other educational establishment; Experience of positive family life; Increased access to leisure opportunities; Increased independence away from caring responsibilities; Increased work opportunities.

2 Outcome Theme Time frame 1 Young Carers are Everyone s Business - they are recognised, acknowledged and supported throughout Suffolk enabling them to optimise their achievement To promote a clear pathway for the early identification and support of Young Carers November 2015 Professionals working with families across all organisations to have the knowledge and understanding to identify and support young carers, and embed a young carer sensitive philosophy into service delivery using the whole family approach to assessment To ensure that Young Carers continue to be integral to the ACCORD protocol To ensure that support is readily available across all agencies No Wrong Doors To ensure that Young Carers continue to be supported by a range of universal, targeted and specialist services 2 All staff working with families in Suffolk, across all organisations and sectors, has a knowledge and understanding of Young Carers, embedding a proactive Young Carer sensitive philosophy into service delivery Young Carers Training Module to be further developed to be used in all partners generic training programmes for staff, and to be kept under review To ensure that the underpinning principle, that young carers are children and young people first, who have a right to take part in everyday experiences and must never be regarded primarily as carers, is embedded in current practice across all sectors To develop a comprehensive communications strategy to ensure that all agencies and partners are aware of the circle of support available to Young Carers and to promote the launch of the November 2015

3 Young Carer Registration/Self-Assessment Tool To ensure there is a commitment across all sectors to ensure that no child or young adult is disadvantaged because of taking on caring responsibilities for another member of the family 3 Digital technology to provide information, advice and guidance around the positive and negative impacts of caring, embedding the Signs of Safety model within the assessment process To encourage professionals to use the registration/self-assessment tool as a means of identifying November 2015 the positive and negative impacts of caring. The tool can measure the extent and nature of caring and its impact on the emotional well-being of a young person, and can support professionals in whatever holistic assessment they are undertaking with the family To encourage professionals to sign up to the Young Carers Unlimited quarterly newsletter November 2015 Ensure information on the Young Carers Unlimited website is current, fit for purpose, and provides the tools and resources to enable professionals to be more Young Carer aware to support the whole family approach to assessment 4 Use of digital technologies to provide self-help tools to encourage Young Carers and Young Adult Carers and their families to help themselves. The introduction of an online self-assessment tool to enable young people to identify themselves and their level of caring with safeguards for onward referral to appropriate support To encourage Young Carers to sign-up to Young Carers Unlimited to identify the level of their caring responsibilities and to protect them from undertaking inappropriate caring tasks To provide Young Carers with information, advice and guidance To provide opportunities for Young Carers to engage in leisure activities and establish friendships November 2015

4 To provide an opportunity for Young Carers to self identify, who otherwise would have remained hidden. To overcome barriers that prevent young carers seeking support, particularly where there are parental mental health and substance misuse issues within the family environment 5 Maximising current resources to re-design specialist service provision focussing on an initial assessment of need and onward referral to statutory services where appropriate The re-design of specialist commissioned services to focus on telephone/face to face initial assessment of need, and timely onward referral, where appropriate To ensure that Young Carers have a seamless transition into Young Adult Carer projects, and are supported through personal support planning appropriate to need To promote well-being and resilience through confidence and self-esteem programmes November 2015 January 2016 On- going 6 Embedding Young Carer sensitive approaches in schools for early identification and support Support schools and colleges to identify a Young Carers Lead and to engage them in Young Carer sensitive practices All secondary schools to be encouraged to sign-up to the Schools Award, a tiered scheme recognising the achievement of schools in adopting a Young Carer friendly ethos with established protocols and procedures The progress and achievements of the Schools Award to be included in quarterly monitoring and review process To measure the impact of positive approaches to Young Carers in schools via the commissioned University College Suffolk (UCS) project, and to produce a full report on outcomes and recommendations December 2015

5 7 Extending the scope of service provision to include children aged 5 8 years Young Carers aged between 5 8 years to be identified in primary schools October 2015 Pilot commissioned to work in 4 primary schools to identify needs and make recommendations on good practice for this increasing cohort of Young Carers To develop a local model of support to ensure that young carers are identified at an early stage and can be supported with timely interventions and transition to secondary school Embed the School Nurse Pathway of Support for Young Carers to ensure a co-ordinated approach amongst all professionals for early identification and support October 2015 Early Transition assessment and support planning for Young Adult Carers from age 14. Key partner to co-ordinate transition planning and onward referral where appropriate October 2015 To protect Young Adult Carers from inappropriate caring by ensuring the cared for has appropriate service provision in place To identify those Young Adult Carers at risk of not fulfilling their potential due to caring responsibilities To empower and support Young Adult Carers in life-enhancing experiences such as employment support, CV writing and interview skills