There are several service areas within Children and Families:

Referral and Assessment Team:

• The Referral and Assessment Team carry out initial, core, and child protection assessments. The team has developed a successful Finding Solutions Service which offers families requesting assistance the opportunity to focus on their strengths in finding their own solutions to the difficulties they face.
• An Emergency Duty Team provides an out-of-hours social work service 365 days per year.
• The Family Support Service works primarily with families with children under the age of 8. Preventative and specialist services are provided for vulnerable children, young people and parent/carers through the Family Centre Service, Sponsored Childcare Service, and Contact Service.
• The Supporting Families Outreach Workers with families and young people aged 8 to 16 years. They provide intensive support to families to help maintain young people in their families and offer early intervention to target family breakdown situations.

Children in Need

• Four Children In Need Teams work more intensively with children and young people in need, including work around child protection issues and looked after children.
• The Children with Disabilities Team provides social work support and access to services for children with disabilities and their families. Services are also commissioned from a range of independent providers.
• Therapeutic Services include a Social Work Therapy Team and child and adolescent mental health (CAMHS) social workers. They provide support to children with emotional or psychological unmet need and children who have suffered abuse.
• The Leaving Care Team provides support and advice to young people leaving care up to the age of 21 years (or 24 years if in full time education).

Looked After Children

• A Fostering and Adoption Service identifies and arranges foster and adoptive placements for looked after children.
• Registered Managers and staff work in five Children’s Homes. Three mainstream children’s homes are located in Blaydon, Crawcrook and Leam Lane. There is also a short break unit for children with disabilities and a long-term children’s home for children with specific complex needs.
• Springboard Treatment Foster Care is a pilot project offering intensive multi-disciplinary wrap-around support for looked after young people with complex and challenging needs.

Safeguarding Children Unit

• The Safeguarding Children Unit carries out reviews of children and young people looked after and on the child protection register, as well as reviews of foster carers.
• The team also has a quality assurance role, with responsibility for co-ordinating Regulation 33 inspections of children’s homes, as well as undertaking complaints investigations.

Administration

• Team clerks support social work staff in Referral and Assessment and Children in Need teams.
• Administrative staff support a number of panels including the fostering and adoption panels, the placement resource panel and the social work therapy panel.
• Financial systems are a key part of the work undertaken in administration with weekly payments to foster carers and care leavers.