Children with disabilities

What is this service? 
We offer different types of support for children with disabilities and their families, including:

• Short breaks (or respite) for children with all kinds of disabilities, away from their own home, to give parents a break from caring. The children stay in the homes of approved carers, who have all been thoroughly checked and assessed.
• Short breaks (or respite) for children with learning disabilities in our four-bed unit. It is open at weekends and school holidays. It has facilities to take children who have physical disabilities as well as their learning disability.  
• Social work support. We visit families at home to discuss what support the child or young person needs, as a result of their disability. This is called an assessment. We can then set up a range of services including Direct Payments, where you get money to buy in the care you need.   
  

Who can we help?
Any child or young person (under 18) with a disability, who lives in Stoke-on-Trent, can apply to use these services.

Unfortunately we can't help everyone so we carry out what's called an initial assessment to find out a bit more about your situation. We will then know whether our services are suitable for you and whether we may be able to offer you support.

How do you ask for this support?
You need to contact our Hanley office- click here for their contact details and opening times.

What happens when you contact us?
If you phone our Hanley office, we will ask you some questions to find out more about you, like your age, name, address and what help you need. We then pass these details onto our duty officer who will decide whether our services can help you and let you know, within one working day.

If our services can help you, we will usually do what we call an ‘initial assessment’ with you, where we meet you and talk to you more about your situation and the support you need. We aim to do this within seven working days.

After the initial assessment, our Resource Access Panel meets to decide what help we can offer you. This panel is made up of our social care staff as well as staff from the health service and voluntary organisations - there are links to their websites at the bottom of this page. So the help we offer, may be provided by one of these organisations rather than by us.

After the panel's decision, we will set up the support as soon as possible. Sometimes there can be a waiting list.

Other organisations that can help

North Staffs Combined Healthcare- they run respite services for children with learning disabilities- click here to find out more.

Donna Louise Trust- click here to go to their website. They are a voluntary organisation who also offer respite care for children with disabilities and run a hospice for children with terminal illnesses.

Disability Solutions - they run the Direct Payments Scheme where you can get money to buy in and organise the care you need. Click here to find out more about Direct Payments.

To see more contacts and links to organisations who help people caring for children with disabilities, click on the link 'Contacts and link- child with a disability' at the top of this page on the right handside.