Health
Being healthy AND being included If you’re not feeling well, feeling upset all the time or anxious, or maybe your physical health isn’t good or you depend on a lot of help, then being included in classroom activities and making the best of opportunities to learn, spending time with friends, or just hanging out in the playground are not ever going to feel easy, and may even make you feel worse. For children and young people with complicated health support needs that mean they receive Continuing Health Care funding, there are ways to address ensuring they are healthy and able to take part in school activities. A well-known example from West Sussex, during their work as an SEND Pathfinder, pointed the way some years ago. There are small numbers of similar joined up packages of support in place now elsewhere in the country (although there should probably be a lot more). Amy was a young woman attending a mainstream school. Funding for her support was split between school and home where Mum managed a direct payment that funded Amy’s out of school support. However due to Amy’s complicated health support needs Mum was never confident in the support being offered at school; this often meant if Amy was having a bad day then Amy would stay at home. In the end it became a very combative relationship between school, services and family. Turning all the funding into an integrated personal budget, enabling Mum to manage this as a direct payment package of support that meant the same skilled support in the classroom as at home, changed everything radically. Amy’s attendance went up and general health improved, Mum relaxed as her worries had been listened to and acted upon and she was much more comfortable knowing what support Amy was having, and the difficult relationship between school, services and family improved greatly.
to think about how they may use one. This means many children and young people missing out on the opportunity of support like that in Amy’s story. The potential of integrated personal budgets to deliver joined up support has never Nic Crosby been given the attention it should, not only for young people with complicated physical health support needs but those with mental health challenges, autism and complicated home and family lives. It is continually trumpeted as part of the solution to the rising numbers of children and young people with learning disabilities, autism and/ or mental health support needs being placed away. Yet across the country there has been slow (if any in some places) uptake of the opportunities supported in the Children and Family Act 2014 being driven by NHS England’s move to more personalised care. For example, a young person allocated a number of hours social care Direct Payment and also a greater number of hours of Continuing Healthcare Support but denied information and possibility of taking the CHC funding as a Direct Payment. The potential pot of hours could have offered a young person with very complicated life support needs the possibility of consistent, familiar and skilled support.
Personal budgets in education, health and social care are only one way of supporting better lives for children and young people with complicated health support needs. It is one way that often shines a light on the local area’s approach to thinking of the ‘whole life’ of a child or young person or if they continue to think solely about their service or In some parts of the country, despite the fact there departments responsibilities. has been a Right to Have a Personal Health Budget I believe that, whether its about integrating funding for Continuing Healthcare since 2014 (and to choose at individual level using personal budgets or at a to receive this as a Direct Payment), families are commissioning level delivering jointly commissioned still being denied information and the opportunity support shaped by the local Health and Well-being
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