Children's social workers - Social worker teams

An overview of the various social worker teams

Child protection and family support

The family support and child protection teams work in partnership with parents and carers, to improve the life chances of children in need, by protecting children and preventing family breakdown. The teams work closely with other agencies, including health and the police, to ensure that children in need of protection (including those on the child protection register) are monitored and their families and carers helped to provide safe care. It is a stimulating environment and good practice and innovation are supported by strong management. There is a high degree of court work, with a supportive legal team. The work is challenging, but comprehensive training is available to everyone as well as support, mentoring and coaching from the senior social worker.

Disabled children’s team

The disabled children’s team is based in the south of the borough in Fulham and is a specialist multidisciplinary team which provides a broad range of services to disabled children and their families. The team assesses the needs of children and their carers and provides and/or arranges the provision of services, which includes the organisation of respite care. 

The team is managed and supported by a team manager. Members of the team undertake assessments for those children in need, those in need of protection and those who need to be looked after.

Family placement unit 

The family placement unit is responsible for recruiting foster carers and adoptive carers for children being looked after. The unit finds and sets up new foster placements for looked after children and provides a management/supervisory role.

In addition to the fostering and adoption teams the unit also runs a shared care family link and befriending
support service for disabled children and their families.

Carers are matched to a family to provide either daytime or overnight care in their own homes, or befriending in the community. This important service allows the parents of a disabled child to have a break or spend time with their other children. It also provides the child with opportunities to make friends and enjoy new experiences.

Family support teams

ASSIST (adolescent crisis intervention and supportteam) is a support service designed to provide intensive
support to families with young people aged 11 to 16 who are in crisis and where the children are at risk of being looked after by the department. Alternatively they may already be placed at our purpose built home and in this instance the ASSIST team work closely with the residential staff to ensure that young people return safely to their families where this is in their best interests.

Looked after children service

The looked after children service works with all children who are likely to require a permanent placement away
from their birth parents. Social workers establish a care plan for each child, identifying the best long term
permanent placement. This includes adoption for those children who cannot be looked after by their extended
families to ensure that the best interests of the children are met and their safety assured in any placement.

The looked after children teams are supported by a senior social worker. The teams are based in the south of the borough in Fulham where there is close communication with our family placement unit. The service is also supported by a designated nurse and a small team of teachers. Staff in the service have particular expertise in court work and permanency planning. 

Referral and assessment 

The referral and assessment service is the first point of contact for children needing social services in the borough. All referrals are screened within 24 hours and a decision made about what action is required. This could range from immediate social work intervention to act to protect a child or referring the matter to another agency to provide appropriate services. The teams provide short-term support but if social work involvement is needed for a medium or longer-term period, then it is referred on to the family support and child protection service.

There is a senior social worker who provides individual mentoring to social workers and supports the induction process. The service is very stable with experienced managers and social workers that have worked in the department for a number of years, and there is a high level of commitment to training and supervision.

It can be challenging work, but it’s also very enjoyable and varied, and gives the opportunity for experiencing
a range of work in both child protection and children in need. The teams are committed to providing high quality work and have received very positive feedback on the quality of their assessments.

Residential units

A purpose built home located in Hammersmith provides places for ten young people aged from birth to 17, who are unable to live at home or whose placement has broken down. The aim for those residents at the home is ensuring their safety and working towards reunification with their families wherever possible. The unit works closely with the
ASSIST family support team, and has a dedicated teacher to liaise with schools and minimise disruption to the young people’s education. 

Akham family centre is a specialist centre located in Shepherds Bush, providing a range of services to families where there are often substantial concerns about neglect and child protection. The service includes residential assessment of the whole family as well as community and day assessment, and a contact service. The Haven is also located in Shepherds Bush and provides a residential respite service for children with disabilities with complex medical and behavioural needs. The unit is presently open for four nights from Thursday to Tuesday in order to relieve the stress and pressure on parents. Usually children have day care sessions or overnight stays at weekends, half terms or holidays.

Youth offending

The youth offending service works with children and young people up to 18 years of age, who come to the attention of the police and courts because of being involved in crime. The main purpose of the team is to reduce the number of offences committed by children and young people. The team provide a range of services to help and support young people, and their families, to try and keep them from becoming any further involved in crime and anti-social behaviour.

They are also helped through the courts if necessary. Each young person who comes to the attention of the Youth Offending Service will be assessed to decide the risk of them re-offending or hurting others. This assessment is to help plan how the team can work with the child or young person, and their family, to reduce any risk and promote the young person’s development and well-being.

The main aims of the Youth Offending Service are to:

• give a fast response to help young offenders 
• encourage young offenders to make amends to the victim 
• develop activities to increase opportunities for young offenders and help them stop committing crime 
• help to develop a sense of responsibility within the young person.       

The Youth Offending Service includes workers from a range of partner agencies, including social services, education, health, the police, housing and probation.

Young people’s service

The key objective for the young people’s service is to support young people to make a successful transition to adulthood and to provide accessible and consistent “after care” support. The service therefore works closely with other agencies to provide a range of services for young people. These include working with the Housing department and other local housing providers to deliver appropriate accommodation and with a range of educational resources to support the provision of education and training to young people who are or have been looked after.

The leaving care team

The leaving care team is based in central Hammersmith and there are specialist education, accommodation and CAMHS (children and adolescent mental health service) posts. It is an experienced and well-managed team that delivers good outcomes for the young people it works with. It has good links with the full range of supportive services available locally.