Thresholds for social care

Social Care is one of the services within children's services which, provides assessment, planning review and monitoring services for children whose needs are complex and whose care is compromised.

Children's Social Care work in close partnership with other agencies and are one of the partners to the Early Intervention and Prevention approach which was adopted by the Children and Young People's Strategic Partnership in April 2007. 

The Early intervention and prevention approach includes the thresholds for all services.  The thresholds are based on the dimensions of the National Assessment Framework and are a tool to assist practitioners to identify the level of need of a child and which services could assist in meeting the needs.

See Children's Trust Thresholds for Intervention (September 2009)

The thresholds model identifies four levels of need:

• Level 1 - children with no additional needs
• Level 2 - children with additional needs requiring a single agency response
• Level 3 - children with additional needs requiring a multi-agency response
• Level 4 - children with complex or acute needs

Social care is part of the service provision for children who meet the threshold for level 4 services.

Initial Response Team

If practitioners or any individual has a concern that a child is at risk of significant harm or has met the threshold for level 4 services they contact the Initial Response Team in Social Care.

The Social Care service uses the National Assessment Framework as its basis for assessments of children.  Any referral into Social Care will be to the Initial Response Team. and will result in a decision on whether or not to proceed to an Initial Assessment.  This assessment must be completed within 7 working days and may lead to further action on the part of social care, a referral to another agency or feedback to the referrer and the family that the child does not have acute needs and the family will be signposted to preventative services.

The priorities for social care are:

• Children who are thought to be at risk of significant harm
• There is a serious concern about the health or development of a child
• A child has a severe or multiple disability where constant care or support is needed or an immediate response is required
• Children for whom a reasonable standard of health and development will not be maintained without services to support the family
• Children for whom a duty arises out of statuary requirements rather than from an assessment of need e.g. chronically sick and disabled Act 1970

The thresholds for level four services detailed in the Early Intervention and Prevention Approach provide many examples of children's needs which may suggest a child has met the criteria for an assessment by the Initial Response Team.

Where a practitioner has a concern about a child whose needs are not consistently met but for whom there are no current acute risks and children's social care assistance is not essential to maintaining the child's health and wellbeing the Initial Response Team are available to discuss other appropriate services that could assist the practitioner to resolve their concerns.