City of Wolverhampton Council is required to provide Short Breaks for families living in the city with a child/young person aged 0 to 25 years with a disability. This statement and the Council’s commissioning strategy form the basis of the plans for short break services. It ensures that the Council have available the range of short breaks that families value and need.

Short breaks are defined as: “part of the range of services provided for families, breaks from caring for carers of disabled children to support them to continue to care for their children at home and to allow them to do so more effectively”.

The Council is committed to working with parents/carers and their representative organisations as well as young people to produce a truly collaborative future for the delivery of short breaks.

The Breaks for Carers of Disabled Children Regulations came into force on 1 April 2011. These Regulations require each local authority to produce a Short Breaks Services Statement (the ‘Local Offer’) so that families know what services are available, the eligibility criteria for these services, and how the range of short breaks is designed to meet the needs of families with children with disabilities locally.

Strategic Priorities

Wolverhampton vision for Children and Young People (CYP) in the city is: Strong families where children grow up well and achieve their full potential.

The vision for CYP with SEND is no different and Wolverhampton is committed to ensuring that CYP with SEND enjoy the same opportunity to life chances as their peers.

A review of the Short Breaks in the City was undertaken in May 2024, and the outcome was that to ensure a range of short break provisions for CYP with SEND and their families who require a short break the following actions are recommended:

• To develop a city wide early help offer for CYP with SEND.
• To develop a universal, targeted and specialist short breaks offer for those CYP with SEND in Wolverhampton.
• To improve access, assessment, and allocation process for families with a child or young person with SEND so that every child who wishes to can access a short break.
• Improve data to inform decision making.

A project proposal was presented to Transforming Children's Services Programme (TCSP) on 13th May 2024 with the following project deliverables:

• A co-produced Short Breaks Statement, with a clear definition of Short Breaks, Eligibility Criteria, and Access Routes.
• A clear access and assessment process for early help and short breaks for CYP with SEND.
• Develop a Resource Allocation System (RAS) to ensure equality of access to services dependent on need.
• Develop a commissioning approach.
• Commission a range of appropriate short breaks provision following evidence gathering on what has worked, what can be made available and what is wanted by Parent Carers and their CYP with SEND (co-produced).
• A short breaks offer for CYP with SEND encompassing universal, targeted and specialist provision.  
• Enable improved community provision and support capacity, through a process to Support and Challenge, to increase the availability of services willing and able to meet the needs of CYP with SEND which will complement statutory provision.
• A reliable data set for CYP with SEND to inform decision making.

A short break can help disabled children to:

• Spend time with friends and make new ones
• Take part in interesting activities and new experiences
• Develop positive life and social skills
• Be more independent or confident
• Prepare for life as an adult
• Be safe
• Have fun

Short breaks can also help families to:

• Feel less pressured
• Be able to get on with normal routines
• Have some 'me time'
• Spend time with other children or together as a family
• Be confident that their child is safe and having fun with skilled carers who understand their needs

Current Provision

As outlined above the Short Breaks Offer is currently under development. In the meantime, the current short break provision is:

Community Short Breaks

Support for children and young people aged between 1-18, at home and to access community activities.

Overnight Short Breaks

There are three elements to this service:

• Residential home providing planned overnight and daytime short breaks
• Outreach Support, providing short breaks in the family home or community setting
• Emergency short breaks provision to support families in crisis

Overnight short breaks is provided by Progress Care facility “Stourbridge House”.

Schools-based short breaks

City of Wolverhampton Council has retained a schools-based grant provision as part of its overall offer. This grant is allocated to the six special schools in Wolverhampton. There are no specific criteria which determine an ‘eligible activity’ under the Grant, however bids for support are expected to:

• Support ‘short breaks’
• Have children, young people and their parents/carers at the centre of developing, planning and evaluating services.
• Support the development and delivery of EHC plans
• Be clearly defined from the ‘normal offer’ or ‘core business’ (i.e. it must demonstrate ‘additionality’. This means that the session/activity would not go ahead, or would go ahead in a reduced form, if grant funding were unavailable)
• Demonstrate value for money