Update on the Disabled Children’s Team (DCT) formerly known as The Disabled Children and Young People’s Service (DCYPS)

I thought this was a nice time to write to you all and update you about some of the changes taking place within the disabled children’s team formerly known as The Disabled Children and Young People’s Service (DCYPS). For those of you who have not met me before, I am Naomi Adams, Head of Service and I have been in post since December 2023. 

Since coming into post, I have been keen to hear about the experiences of families and understand how we can ensure families get the right support at the right time. I am aware that at times our system can be hard to navigate leaving family’s feeling confused and frustrated. This has helped us consider the standard of service we want to deliver (good to outstanding) and with this in mind, we have begun to transform our service. 

So what have we done?

We have located a children’s practitioner within the ‘front door’ who is experienced in working with children who have a disability. This will ensure families have support, signposting and guidance at the earliest opportunity. All of the referrals for children will have oversight and those who meet the eligibility criteria will come straight into the Disabled Children’s Teams (DCT). By Christmas there will be a second practitioner in this role to offer much needed support. Part of this role also focuses on adding Education, Health and Care plan contributions for children who may not have a social worker, after having conversations with parent/carers at the earliest opportunity. 

Secondly the DCT teams are growing and expanding, as you are aware the social work team has historically consisted of one team manager, one advanced practitioner and five social workers to cover the whole county. Alongside this structure there has also been one early help service consisting of nine lead professionals. In the new transformation the service will now have three social work team managers, three advanced practitioners and twelve social workers and early help will have three team managers, three senior children’s practitioners and twelve children’s practitioners. We currently have all the new early help practitioners in post and two of our social work teams are fully recruited to, the third social work team should be fully functional by November 24. 

What's next?

• We have started the process of reviewing the children who have a disability but currently have a social worker within the children and families service and for those children who meet our eligibility criteria, we will start working on the transition plan to our service.
• We run weekly surgeries and through these we offer consultation/advice and support to all social workers/ practitioners in Gloucestershire to ensure children receive the right help and support. This should reassure families of children with disabilities that their child will receive the best support, irrespective of where it’s provided from.

• We are also working with colleagues from the Parent Carer Forum to review our current single assessment template as we would like this to be a more engaging document that has areas that are specific for children with a disability. As I am sure you will understand, we cannot lose the focus of social work assessments and the need for this to assess and determine need, but a shift within area of business this will be welcomed. This is because of feedback from parents about this experience. 

Thank you for taking the time to read the proposed changes and I will write again in the near future to keep you all updated on this journey.

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