Is there specific help that may be available to a disabled child and their family?

Direct financial payments (or vouchers) can be made by children’s services to the parent/carer of a disabled child to enable them to buy services directly themselves.

If children’s services:

• Assess that a child as being in need, and
• Agreed to provide support

then there is a right for the child and family to ask for direct payments.

The money or vouchers can be used to buy the services the child has been assessed to need.  This is instead of children’s services providing the support directly. In most cases children’s services should agree to give you direct payments.

Young disabled people aged 16 and 17 are also eligible to receive direct payments to buy in their own care support. Their carers can also be assessed for support which can be provided in the form of direct payment hours.

It is important that families have specialist advice about whether direct payments should be made to meet their child’s needs. See the Disabilities (including learning disabilities) section of our Useful Links page for some relevant organisations.

A personal budget is an amount of money that is available to meet the services a disabled person is assessed as needing. There are different ways that a personal budget can be delivered. Direct payments are one way.

The following is important information about personal budgets and disabled children:

• Local council’s should include information about their policy on personal budgets in their local offer.
• Personal budgets are used by some local council’s to provide services to meet the needs of disabled children. There is nothing to prevent this. But the law does not require this, and
• There is no right to a personal budget for a child under the age of 18
• Personal budgets don’t alter the right of a disabled child to some form of assessment of their needs
• The law does say that young people and parents of children who have EHC plans have the right to request a personal budget (see section 49(1) Children and Families Act 2014; and SEND Code of Practice at para 3.38)). Some children with EHC plans will be disabled children.

It is important that families have specialist advice about personal budget and direct payments – see Disabilities (including learning disabilities) section of our Useful Links page for details of relevant organisations. Education and special educational needs section on our Useful Links page.

Short breaks are a range of services to support disabled children and their families. All children’s services departments must have short break services available in their local area.

There must be a choice of types of short break services available. And children’s services must set out how they decide who can have short breaks. This information must all be published in a Short Breaks Statement (Paragraph 5 of The Breaks for Carers of Disabled Children Regulations 2011).

Government guidance makes clear that children won’t normally need to be in a voluntary arrangement under section 20 of the Children Act 1989 to have short breaks. But a child can be provided with short breaks under section 20 if this is assessed to be right to meet their needs.

See our Children in care under voluntary arrangements page for more information.

Adult social care services should work with children’s services to ensure that there is a joined-up approach. This includes working together when carrying out assessments.

If a child is approaching 18 years old, their parent or carer may be entitled to an assessment of their needs as a carer under the Care Act 2014.

For further information about adult carer assessments see: https://www.carersuk.org.