A blog from Caroline Coady, CDC’s Deputy Director of Social Care
Families of disabled children have long reported the challenges of getting the right support at the right time particularly in relation to variable approaches to short break support across the country.
Despite all disabled children being defined as ‘in need’ under section 17 of the Children Act 1989 and the duty to assess need, alongside a specifically enforceable duty to provide under section 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, there remain large numbers of families unable to access short breaks either due to a lack of accessible information, long waiting lists, or lack of suitable provision to meet more complex needs.
Across the Council for Disabled Children’s (CDC) work in local areas we routinely hear from families who were not aware that short breaks existed, let alone how to access them. However, evidence tells us what a critical support short breaks can be and when delivered in a timely way through proportionate and tailored assessment and planning pathways, they can prevent avoidable crisis and keep children safely with their families.
Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive states:
“Children’s social care also has a vital role in supporting the wellbeing of disabled children and their families: from provision of early help and short-term community-based short breaks to longer-term plans of regular care and support.”
Similarly, the Law Commission Review of Disabled Children’s Social Care made a range of proposals about how to improve the existing patchwork of legislation which leads to confusion for families and practitioners alike. In particular, a series of proposals linked to assessment, planning and eligibility for short breaks.
A transformation in family support
The Families First Partnership Programme (FFP) Guidance was published today, Thursday 20th March 2025, setting out the vision for a transformation in family support, to rebalance the system away from crisis intervention and toward earlier help, describing effective transformation of family support as “integrating services from universal to social care interventions into a single system”.
CDC thinks this is a critical opportunity to integrate and reform our approach to delivering social care support for disabled children and families and a chance to align the extensive analysis of the Law Commission with the evidence of what families of disabled children need to thrive.
As set out in the FFP programme guidance, we know that all families need support, whether from family or volunteers, private services or publicly funded family support or social work, we also know that the type of support that disabled children and their families may need is potentially different from other children and families who will be supported through Family Help. This means there is a need for a particular focus, throughout implementation, on improving access to short breaks across a spectrum of provision from universal, through targeted early help and into specialist support.
Assessments and plans
The Law Commission describes a significant lack of clarity and widespread confusion in relation to the legal basis for Early Help assessments, as well as their relationship to assessments under section 17 of the Children Act 1989.
In relation to Family Help, the FFP guidance describes an aim to have “one assessment and plan, which will stay and evolve with a family, and that will be accessed by all practitioners and agencies working with them.” It also states that “assessments and plans should cover non-statutory targeted early help and support, and services provided to a child in need”.
CDC’s work with local authorities as described in Using a needs-led eligibility framework to provide services to disabled children and their families explores approaches to proportionate and tailored assessment for disabled children and families, including how a needs-led framework promotes holistic information gathering, taking time to understand individual need, and is enabled by clear information and guidance on the range of support services available. This could form a starting point for the co-production of approaches in local areas.
Short breaks and commissioning
Short breaks are a critical element of provision for disabled children and their families. However, due to a number of legal nuances, including the definition of disabled children as ‘in need’, local areas do not always articulate short breaks as part of their targeted Early Help offer meaning that the ability to access this critical early support, designed to enable families to continue in their caring role, often does not come into play until families are already in crisis.
There is an opportunity to rebalance this in the transformation to a Family Help offer. Local areas should review their short break statement and commissioning strategy in order to invest in more effective approaches, co-produced with local families and building on learning from the short break innovation fund projects. The Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant commits £270million of new, ring-fenced funding for direct investment in additional prevention activity for children and families through the implementation of Family Help and Child Protection reforms. It is vitally important that local areas ensure that disabled children, young people and their families benefit from this investment in order to bridge the existing gap in provision.
The workforce
The role of the Designated Social Care Officer for SEND will play an important role in supporting strategic alignment and operational join up between systems as well supporting the workforce.
The Law Commission identified that:
- “joint working is easier when there is an individual based in the local authority who is responsible for promoting co-operation, both in general and in individual cases, and who is senior enough to make that happen; and
- the designated social care officer role can perform this function.”
Alongside this, Working Together to Safeguard Children (HM Government, 2023) “encouraged” implementation of DSCOs to “improve links between social care services and the SEND system”.
With the introduction of Family Help Lead Practitioners (FHLP), it will be important to understand the particular knowledge, skills and experience needed for these practitioners to effectively support disabled children and their families. Stakeholders, including parent carers, described a lack of relevant training, experience and understanding of disability for practitioners leading assessments. Multi-agency Safeguarding Partnerships will need to consider the particular training and support needs of this part of the workforce to ensure that the needs of disabled children and their families can be met effectively through a new model of Family Help.
The Opportunity
The transformation of the system to deliver an integrated Family Help service creates a significant opportunity to draw on the extensive evidence from the Law Commission Review of disabled children’s social care legislation. Aligning approaches with proposals in relation to proportionate assessments and person-centred planning from skilled and knowledgeable FHLPs and breaking down barriers to critical early interventions for families of disabled children, such as short breaks. Through CDC’s recent project work in local areas and across regions, it is clear that investing in proportionate pathways to short breaks can prevent families presenting in crisis after leap-frogging a vital layer of early support created by a system that is not designed to meet their needs.
The vision for a transformation in family support, to rebalance the system away from crisis intervention and toward earlier help, must be realised for all children if the opportunity to create lasting change and improve outcomes is to succeed.
Training opportunity
CDC are committed to working with social care colleagues across the sector to ensure that the transformation in family support, to rebalance the system away from crisis intervention and toward earlier help considers the specific needs of disabled children and their families. Click here to find out about our Family Help – Making it work for disabled children and their families training