What is the Core Offer?
The National Core Offer describes the standards which families with disabled children and young people can expect from local services.
The Core Offer applies to all local services which support families with disabled children and young people, primarily social care, education, health and youth services, but also transport, housing, leisure and the voluntary and independent sectors.
The Core Offer covers five main elements:
1. Information
2. Transparency
3. Assessment
4. Participation
5. Feedback
What will each of these elements cover?
The following details summarise what each of these elements should provide. For more information visit the core offer link under 'Other websites' on this page.
1. INFORMATION
- Accessible
- Available
- Relevant and accurate
- Joined up
- User focussed
Information should be clearly written, easily found at places families with children often visit, up to date and appropriate for each stage of childhood, and available from all services and providers
2. TRANSPARENCY
- How resources are allocated
- How decisions about services for individual children and families are
made - How agencies work together to improve children’s health and wellbeing
The guidelines which services use to decide about eligibility are fair and easy to understand. They take into account how impairments affect the individual and families.
The arrangements governing the way agencies work together eg through a Children’s Trust, are published and the development of the overarching Children Plan can be influenced through consultation and feedback. Decisions about what overall services to provide and the costs are based on information about the local population of disabled children.
3. ASSESSMENT
- Clear explanation
- Holistic, coordinated and multi-agency
- Proportionate
- Promoting the welfare of the child
- Achieving desired results
There is a clear explanation why an assessment is being undertaken, how it will be done, the time it will take and what the possible results could be. Only details necessary for the purpose of the assessment are requested and, where possible, assessments are joined up between different agencies to prevent families having to repeat details. Assessments take into account the child’s needs within those of the family, and the child’s and family’s views about what they would like the result of the assessment to be. Assessments provide the opportunity to look at options for using mainstream services, and/or direct payments as well as more specialist provision and are carried out by skilled staff.
4. PARTICIPATION
- Involvement in individual assessment and reviews of services
- Involvement in representative groups
- Opportunities to give views on service developments
Children and their families are involved in decisions about the services they will be offered as a result of their assessment. Parents are encouraged to join parent forums and other groups which represent parents, and children and young people have opportunities to give their views, with appropriate support where necessary.
5. FEEDBACK
- Routinely and systematically sought
- Analysed
- Acted upon
- Reported back
- Learning from complaints
Systems are in place to ask children, young people and their families for their views about services they have received, on a regular basis. The feedback is analysed to see if patterns or trends are emerging and, where appropriate, actions are taken as a result of the feedback. Details of how to make a complaint are given to everyone being assessed and the learning from complaints is fed back to managers.
How is South Gloucestershire putting the Core Offer in place?
We have begun asking all services to assess themselves against the standards for the five elements of the Core Offer and to say what stage they have reached in achieving them. We will involve parents, children and young people in telling us if they think the services they are receiving are reaching the standards and we will track progress.
What difference will the Core Offer make?
Families of disabled children will know what they can expect from services and how they can influence what is provided and the way it is delivered.