New Birth to Settled Adulthood Service goes live

A new service designed to improve the way we support children and young people with complex needs or who are disabled as they grow into adults has gone live this week.

The Service will provide a flexible approach to working with individual children and young people approaching adulthood, ensuring the right worker supports the right child/young person in the right place, at the right time. There will be embedded specialists within the service and improved support for parents and carers to build resilience, knowledge and confidence in caring for the child or young person.

The new Birth to Settled Adulthood Service (B2SA), which integrates Adult's, Children's, Health and Education services across the Dorset Council area, will help between 900 and 1,000 children and young people (0-25 years) including:

* Children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) who have an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and are likely to have care and support needs into adulthood.

* Children aged 14+ requiring support for mental health who are likely to need care and support into adulthood.

* Children with high-cost education packages.

* Young people who are at risk of abuse or exploitation and may not meet Care Act eligibility criteria.

* Children and young people who have Continuing Care funding.

* Young carers

Feedback over the past 18 months from children, young people and their families told us that:

* We should keep children and young people at the centre of what we do.

* They don't want to keep repeating their story.

* Having a single point of contact would be useful.

* We should adopt an outcomes focused approach.

* We should improve joint working across education, health and social care.

* We should consider the need for care and support assistance when preparing care leavers for adulthood.

* We should plan earlier to enable children and young people to gain the right skills for independence.

* We should enable smoother handovers between services.

Since then, we have developed the B2SA Strategy, launched a Supported Employment Service for people aged over 16 and have provided supported accommodation for young people with autism at Elizabeth Court, Dorchester.

We have held 8 transitions roadshows to improve access to information, advice and guidance to parent carers; produced a Preparation for Adulthood Guide in partnership with the Dorset Parent Carer Council (DPCC), the Department for Education recognised forum for Dorset; co-designed an Outcomes Framework with parents and carers and young people; drafted a transitional Safeguarding Plan and made changes across Children's and Adults Directorates following extensive consultation with young people, parent carers and practitioners.

Theresa Leavy, Executive Director for Children's Services at Dorset Council, welcomed the new service: "Every child and young person deserves the same opportunity to meet their potential. Some need extra help to achieve this. I am delighted that after some fantastic partnership work we have got to a stage of launching a service that will improve the way we support children and young people with complex needs or who are disabled as they grow into adults.

"We have listened carefully to the feedback provided over the last 18 months and the service has been designed to address what children and young people and their parents and carers have told us."

Jon Price, Executive Director for Adult Social Care and Housing at Dorset Council, said the service would provide a more coordinated approach to working with individual children and young people from all partners: "Starting from birth or first contact with us, we will support and guide children, young people, their parents and carers as they grow up and move towards adulthood, ensuring the move is flexible to meet the needs of the young person."

The Dorset Parent Carer Council said it was delighted to see the new service go live: "We have been working with parent/carers from the outset and are delighted to see the feedback they have provided threading through the design and implementation. Having worked in partnership to implement phase one, we look forward to continuing this in supporting the delivery and being part of the process to co-produce and implement phase two. We look forward to seeing the improvements and hearing the success stories we are confident this new service will bring."

The next phase will align the new service with NHS Dorset and the Integrated Care System (ICS). This will ensure that all Health and Care services that support children and young people will work together.

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