Short breaks
Short breaks provide young people with disabilities an opportunity to:
- spend time away from their parents
- have fun with their friends
- give their families a break from caring responsibilities
Short breaks can occur during the day or evening, overnight or on weekends. They can last a few hours or several days and can be in various locations, like:
- the family home
- a carer’s home
- a residential setting
- a universal or specialist community facility or service
We can also help families to access holidays at highly-subsidised rates at:
- The Thomas Centre, a specialist autism-friendly holiday centre
- Butlins' Skegness, which has two bespoke caravans
For a list of short break providers, visit our family services directory.
Who are short breaks for?
Short breaks are for any person aged 0 to 18 with a disability, including:
- children and young people with an autistic spectrum disorder
- severe learning disabilities
- complex health needs
- cognitive or sensory impairments
- moving or handling needs
- life-limiting conditions
If you are wondering about what happens when you turn 18, don’t worry, if you are already open to a children’s services team, they will submit a referral on your behalf to the Adult Social Care team before you turn 18. If you would like more information please visit our transition to adulthood page
What service do short breaks provide?
Short breaks offer different provision for different levels of need.
Assessed needs can be for residential or overnight respite care or other social care support.
Non-assessed can be for:
- clubs
- activities
- subsidised breaks countywide
To help activity workers understand and meet a young person's needs, you can download the All About Me booklet. It can be filled in electronically or printed off.
It can help explain the young person's:
- likes and dislikes
- how they like to be communicated with
- how they show they are happy or sad
How to access the service
Overnight residential short breaks are dependent on many factors. They are only granted following an assessment of needs process by social care.
We can guide you towards a suitable range of options.
To get in touch, email shortbreaks@lincolnshire.gov.uk or call 01522 782111.
The purpose of this statement
This services statement is for families living in Lincolnshire who have a child or young person with a disability. It includes information on the purpose of the short breaks services statement and the current range of support available in Lincolnshire.
The short breaks services statement sets out:
- the council's duty
- the criteria by which eligibility for services will be assessed and how to arrange an assessment
- what short breaks are and how these services are designed to meet the needs of families who have a child or young person with a disability.
Our short breaks services statement was developed in partnership with the parent carer forum (LPCF) and Lincolnshire Young Voices to ensure it remains relevant to all. The statement is compliant with The Equality Act 2010 which is used to support the development of suitable provision with appropriate reasonable adjustments.
Definition of a disability
The Equality Act 2010 ('the Act') and Disability Discrimination Act 1995 ('DDA') define a disabled person:
"A person has a disability if they have a physical or mental impairment, and the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on the person's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities."
Our duty
Since 1 April 2011, local authorities must provide short breaks for children and young people who are eligible. This is called the short breaks duty.
The following legislation is also in place to protect and support children, young people and their families:
- the Children & Young Person’s Act 2008
- the Short Break Regulations 2011 - paragraph 6 of Schedule 2 to the Children Act 1989 - all local authorities are required to publish a short break duty services statement from 1st October 2011 and undertake an annual review.
- the Equality Act 2010
- SEND Reforms 2014
- Children’s & Families Act 2014
- Care Act 2014 short breaks are designed to support families so that they do not reach crisis point.
We will check this short breaks statement annually to make sure it is up to date and relevant to the local needs of children and young people and their families.
What are short breaks?
Children and young people with a disability can access enjoyable experiences away from their primary carers to enhance their personal and social development, while parents, carers and other family members are provided with a valuable break from their caring roles and responsibilities, or offered help in accessing the community for, and or, with their child or young person.
Most short breaks are available to all children with additional needs and are accessed through self-referral. However, some short breaks are more specialised and are offered where the child or young person’s needs are greater, these more specialist short breaks can be accessed following an assessment.
Short breaks provide young people with disabilities an opportunity to:
- spend time away from their parents
- have fun with their friends
- give their families a break from caring responsibilities.
Short breaks can occur during the day or evening, overnight or on weekends. They can last a few hours or several days and can be in various locations, like:
- the family home
- a carer’s home
- a residential setting
- a universal or specialist community facility or service
- subsidised family holidays.
For more details on short breaks suppliers please search for short breaks on our family services directory
Who is it for?
Short breaks activities and provision are for children and young people from birth to 18 years (up to their 18th birthday) with a disability.
There are different levels of support depending on a child or young persons needs.
- universal
- early help
- child in need
- immediate safeguarding
Universal provision
We are committed to ensuring children with disabilities or sensory impairments can access positive experiences and families can get the support they need within universal provision.
The majority of children in Lincolnshire who require services will receive them through universal provision within their local community. The same should be true of any child with a disability.
Universal provision, for example, sports clubs, youth clubs, libraries and children’s centres are really important in ensuring children and young people with disabilities have fun and enjoy themselves with friends, just like all children and young people.
If a child or young person and their families can meet their own support needs, they are encouraged and supported to do so. An assessment is not required to access universal provision.
There are a wide range of directly accessible services and sources of support that can be accessed via the Local Offer pages.
To help activity workers understand and meet a young person's needs, you can download the all about me booklet. It can be filled in electronically or printed off.
To head straight to universal short breaks visit the Local offer and search our family services directory
Early help
Lincolnshire’s early help offer identifies the need for help for children and families as soon as problems start to emerge, or when there is a strong likelihood that problems will emerge in the future.
The early help offer is not just for very young children as problems may also emerge at any point throughout childhood and adolescence.
The early help offer includes universal and targeted services designed to reduce or prevent specific problems from escalating or becoming entrenched.
For more information about our early help offer and team around the child, please visit the Lincolnshire safeguarding partnership
Children in need
Specialist intervention may be required for children and young people who have a profound and multiple learning disability, who might have difficulties seeing, hearing, speaking, and moving.
Their disabilities will have significantly affected their ability to communicate and be independent compared to children of a similar age without a disability.
They may have complicated health and social care needs due to these or other conditions.
They will need support to help them with some areas of their life, such as eating, washing or personal care.
Accessing the right level of support
All children and young people with a diagnosis of a disability are entitled to an assessment under The Children Act 1989.
An early help worker or social worker will assess the child or young person’s needs to ensure that the right level of support is provided. When an assessment of need has taken place, specialist services may be agreed for children and young people with severe and profound disabilities.
If a social care assessment identifies that there are unmet social care needs which cannot be met through the universal provision, then short breaks support may be provided such as;
- care support within and outside the home, this could be:
- through a direct payment allocation which can be used by the family to pay someone to either come to the house to do activities with the child or young person, or to take the child or young person into the community.
- domiciliary care in the family home and in the community.
- overnight stays at one of the local authority’s specialist regulated residential homes which are registered and Ofsted inspected to provide outstanding care and support short breaks
- a specialist activity not requiring parental, carer or guardian attendance
- a short break with a specially trained foster carer
This additional support is needed by some families because of the nature of the child’s disability, or because of individual family circumstances.
How to arrange an assessment
The Customer Service Team will screen the referrals. If the referral meets the eligibility criteria, the child or young person will be allocated a social worker from the Children with Disabilities Team, who will then be in contact to meet the child or young person and their family to begin the child and family assessment.
Alternatively, the child or young person may be allocated to our early help service to complete an early help assessment (EHA) or our Family Assessment Support Teams (FAST) to complete a social care assessment dependent upon the needs highlighted within the referral and the child and young person’s circumstances.
The Children with Disabilities Team accept referrals from parents, carers and professionals working with children and young people who have a diagnosed disability that meets the criteria of severe and profound. Parents or carers may prefer to speak to a professional who they know. If this is the case, then this professional can refer the child or young person to the Customer Services Team.
The child and family assessment is used to decide whether a child or young person under 18, is eligible for social care support services.
To make a referral please call our customer service centre on 01522 782111 or visit our children's services page
Transition to adulthood
If you are wondering about what happens when you turn 18, don’t worry, if you are already open to a children’s services team, they will submit a referral on your behalf to the adult social care team before you turn 18.
If you are not sure if this applies to you or you would like more information please visit our transition to adulthood page
More to offer
For more information on our services for SEND, please look at the Local Offer
or fill in our form to send us an enquiry