Improving services for children with disabilities

Residents are being invited to have their say on the future shape of services providing ‘short-breaks’ for children with disabilities in Northamptonshire.

Message from Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board and Northamptonshire Children's Trust

Short breaks are breaks for children and young people with disabilities which give them rich opportunities while also allowing their carers to have a break from caring to carry out other vital activities they may not otherwise be able to do.

Currently Northamptonshire Children’s Trust and the NHS Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board fund a range of different services from a number of different organisations to provide these breaks ranging from residential and non-residential breaks, personal care and support, holiday clubs, sensory impairment services and sleep support.

Having worked with parents and practitioners the organisations have developed a potential new model for the services and are looking for feedback on this before going any further.

“Previous engagement with parents and practitioners highlighted how critical short break services are and provided some key insights into how these could be improved. It was clear from the sessions held that there was a need for increased early help, a simpler way for families to access the services and for these services to be more flexible, better integrated with each other and provided in places closer to home.

“This feedback was critical in helping us design a potential new model, bringing everything together into a single service run and led by one organisation. Working with our partners, we are requesting feedback on this potential model.”Julian Wooster, Chair of Northamptonshire Children’s Trust

The new proposed model would bring all current short break services into one offer, led by one organisation – as opposed to the current situation where services are provided across a range of different organisations. The aim is to ensure these services are better joined up to meet the needs of families.

“It is really important to get feedback on the potential new model for these services we are exploring. By looking at doing things differently this may mean that current services need to change as we look to use resources more effectively and improve the support for families.

“All the feedback received from this engagement will be used to develop the new model which we are hoping to be in place from April 2024.”Chief Executive of NHS Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board Toby Sanders

Workshops are being held for families and practitioners working in the field. If you are interested in attending a workshop please email sufficiency@nctrust.co.uk . A questionnaire has also been published to gauge views, to take part in the engagement please visit short breaks for children with disabilities.