Personal Budgets and Direct Payments for Children with SEND
Explore the policy and process of personal budgets and direct payments for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). Learn about eligibility, benefits, and how to access support for individualized care and outcomes.
Download Presentation
Please find below an Image/Link to download the presentation.
The content on the website is provided AS IS for your information and personal use only. It may not be sold, licensed, or shared on other websites without obtaining consent from the author. If you encounter any issues during the download, it is possible that the publisher has removed the file from their server.
You are allowed to download the files provided on this website for personal or commercial use, subject to the condition that they are used lawfully. All files are the property of their respective owners.
The content on the website is provided AS IS for your information and personal use only. It may not be sold, licensed, or shared on other websites without obtaining consent from the author.
E N D
Presentation Transcript
Personal Budgets and Direct Payments Developing Policy and Process
Why are we doing this? To help all those involved to understand the scope of personal budgets and how they should be applied to children with SEND. To ensure children and young people with SEND can access the right support at the right time and achieve their agreed outcomes. To embed the use of personal budgets in our existing pathways for children and young people with SEND
What is a personal budget? Care Act 2014: written statement provided to a person with care and support needs which specifies the cost to the local authority of meeting the needs it is either required to meet or decides to meet. SEND Code of Practice 2015: the amount of money identified by the local authority to deliver the provision set out in an EHC Plan where the parent/carer or young person is involved in securing that provision.
What is a direct payment? They are one way of receiving all or part of a personal budget. They can be paid to: the parent/carer of a child or young person with SEND up to the age of 25 years the young person themselves from 16 years of age if they have the capacity to manage their own finances A nominated third party.
Who can access them? For children and young people who need very individualised support that is not normally available from commissioned services or who need 1:1 personal assistant support, for set amounts of time, outside of school hours. They are only part of a much wider system of opportunity and support from health, education and social care such as what schools provide and short breaks. Any support is based on assessed need and the outcomes to be met.
Eligibilty The draft policy covers 4 areas of service where personal budgets might be a way to meet need: Health: only for children with the most complex needs who meet the continuing health care criteria (only around 20 children in B&H who currently meet this) and wheelchair users for their equipment. Education: only for children with and EHC plan with very individualised needs, where outcomes cannot be met without the allocation of a personal budget (around 30 children and young people currently)
Eligibility cont. Home to School Transport if a child is eligible for support under the home to school transport policy this may be possible, and each case is assessed on an individual basis (around 100 cases currently). Social Care if a strengthening families assessment concludes that individual support for the child or family is required to meet the support plan outcomes, this is usually delivered as a direct payment (around 250 cases but rising)
What does the draft policy cover? Two sections: Section 1: Personal budgets Section 2: Direct payments What they are, legislation, requesting, eligibility, decision making, payment, management, reviews and appeals, employing staff, PA recruitment and payment
Outcomes in the council from the policy development Better synergy across social care, health, education and travel assistance to how personal budgets from council services are delivered Staff expertise and understanding has grown, team processes have been developed but training will need to be ongoing and process adapted over time
Associated documents Case examples FAQs Flowchart Equalities Impact Assessment What else do we need? Parent s guide, easy read, young person's guide.
Health Personal Budgets Policy has been developed with NHS Sussex and all references to their process has been agreed with them. Only a very small number of children meet the criteria for continuing health care and only these children and their families can access a personal health budget Children who are wheelchair users can access personal budgets for their equipment Also scope for personal budgets for children being discharged from hospital but this relates to all children not just those with SEND.
A closer look at personal budgets for education and social care Handover to: Lorriane Hughes Head of disability services (0-25) Rhian Hughes Head of SEN Statutory Services
