We offer a wide range of services to help children and families who are having problems. Here you can find out what we do, how we may be able to help you and how to contact us if you need help.

The contact details for children’s services are:

Children’s Referral and Assessment Team: Telephone: 01291 635669 and Fax: 01291 635684 Children and Families Support Team: Telephone: 01291 635692 and Fax: 01291 635684

Emergency out of hours service: Telephone: 0800 328 4432 or see our emergency out of hours service pages.

How we can help:

In all of our work we work closely with other local authority departments and agencies such as GPs, health visitors, schools, the probation service, the housing service and voluntary groups. However, we will always ask your consent before we speak to other agencies about you.

Once you have contacted us (we call this a referral) we will visit you to carry out an assessment if appropriate to do so. We cannot hope to provide help for all children in the community because we have limited staff and finances. We have produced a list of priorities to help us manage our services properly. You will receive services from us according to which priority area you fall into. This means those who are most in need receive our help before those whose need is less.

We offer a wide range of services to help children and families who are having problems. This page tells you what we do, how we may be able to help you and how to contact us if you need help.

Our main aims are:

• To offer support to children and their families to help them through difficult periods in their lives
• For children to remain with their families wherever possible. However, when children need care or protection which cannot be given by a parent, we may consider supporting children in another family
• To work with you to plan better services

We will do this by:

• Identifying the children in most need and targeting our services towards them
• Focusing our work around the protection and welfare of the child to make sure that their best interests always comes first
• Treating all children, young people, parents and carers as individuals with their own needs when completing an assessment for services
• Always taking into account the views and experiences of the child when important decisions are being made about them
• Working in partnership with young people, parents, carers and other agencies.
• Using shared written agreements to promote openness and honesty about our role and purpose
• Making sure that everyone has the equal rights to accessing and receiving services
• By responding to complaints if you are not satisfied, and to compliments when you are pleased with the receive