Policies, procedures and pathways

Stockport Pathway for Service from Children’s Social Care

Levels of need

If you're a professional you should decide on the level of need below. Levels of need are used to determine the kind of support a child or family requires.

Before you make a referral, you should have the consent of the family unless this will put the child at risk of harm.

Thriving: universal services

Children and families that are thriving are usually those that are making:

• the best use of universal services, such as health, childcare and education
• good overall progress in all areas of their development

For children and families to be thriving, we believe that the following factors should be met:

• loving, nurturing relationships with parents and carers
• a safe home, free from stress and adversity
• the right help to develop good language and other cognitive skills
• support to manage behaviour and regulate their emotions
• good physical and mental health and access to healthcare

When it's identified by a family member or professional that one or more of the factors are not met, this should be a trigger point to think about what may be needed to support the child, young person, parent or carer to thrive.

Getting advice and signposting

People of all ages will sometimes need to get advice in aspects of their lives. Children and families have the right to know what support is available and how they can access it. Getting advice can be a one-off or re-occurring until the adult or child feels advice and guidance is no longer needed.

Getting help

There can be times when a person or family needs help to achieve their goals and ambitions. People have the right to know what support there is available to them and how to access it. They also have the right to know when professionals believe they need help.

Getting help can be a one-off event, for example, an additional home visit from a health visitor to focus on one area of support, or it can continue for a short period of time, for example, supporting parents with the Solihull online course.

Help should only end when the child, adult or family feel that their goals are met. If goals are not achieved, professionals need to talk to the child and family about this. This may include talking about how to get more or a different kind of help to ensure a good outcome for the whole family.

Getting more help

There can be times when a child, adult or family need a plan of support and intervention from services. Children and families who need more help are those where the family and/or a professional has identified that, without help, the child will be in need as defined by the Children Act 1989.

Children and families may be encouraged to engage in a more formal assessment to consider the whole family’s need. For example, an early help assessment or social care led assessment and associated care plans that may stem from this assessment. When families receive more help, a lead professional will oversee the plan.

Assessment, goal setting and support plans are always shared with children and families. As goals and ambitions are achieved, professionals should celebrate this progress with the family. If progress is not achieved, professionals must talk to the child and family about this. This may lead to goals being reset and consideration of changing and/or scaling up the support plan.

Urgent support and response

Children, families and professionals may decide that, without urgent and/or intensive support, a child may be at risk of serious harm, or their long-term outcomes may be impaired. In most circumstances, this level of involvement will require a referral to children’s social care and/or children’s mental health service.

In most circumstances, the request for involvement from such services should be discussed with the parent, and/or child as appropriate. The only occasion agencies may not talk to a child or their parent or carer about statutory involvement will be when a professional believes that the child’s safety will be compromised by doing so.

This may not be a long term position and professionals will work quickly to put safety measures in place to ensure that open communication with the child and their care giver can take place.

To understand what the right referral pathway is, and to find examples, you can refer to our guidance for professionals to know when advice, help and urgent response is needed.