Get the help you need, at the time you need it - Access (Community Health, Wellbeing and SEND)
Access helps children, young people, families and professionals to get advice and help from the most appropriate service, at the level required and in a timely way without having to keep repeating the same story.
Which services are part of Access?
Three organisations are part of Access and can help with community, health and wellbeing support for young people with SEND.
- Livewell Southwest - Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), Speech and Language, Health Visiting, School Nursing
- University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust (UHP) - Child Development Centre/Community Paediatric Services
- Plymouth City Council SEND Service - Early Years Inclusion Service, Advisory Support Team, Local Authority Occupational Therapy Team, Children's Disability Social Work Team, 0-25 SEND Statutory Assessment Team, Plymouth LA Educational Psychology Service and Short Breaks.
How to get help
Sometimes advice and information is not enough and help is required. In the first instance we would encourage children, young people and families to have an open discussion with their school/setting and health worker.
Schools and settings use the Plymouth Graduated Approach to Inclusion and Graduated Approach to Inclusion for Early Years frameworks to support the 'assess, plan, do, review' cycle of support for individual children and young people with needs. Using this framework, outcomes based planning takes place and consultation is available from Local Authority SEND professionals. Families and professionals can either contact Plymouth City Council SEND professionals linked to their school/setting or they can contact the Children's Gateway on 01752 668000.
Livewell Southwest also provide mental health support to schools.
Livewell Southwest have a 'Request for Help' system which means that if families or professionals are concerned about a child's speech or language development, they can discuss the child's needs by contacting the team on 01752 434844.
Livewell Southwest also provides an Early Help pathway number for children and young people who might require CAMHS on 01752 431613.
For early concerns around child development in the first instance please discuss with the Primary Care services such as Health Visiting, School Nursing or your GP. Following these contacts, it might be agreed with the family that it would be helpful to bring together services already working with the child i.e. Health Visitor and Early Years for a discussion around next steps to take.
For concerns about children and young people who are already known to the Child Development Centre or have been referred to the service, contact can be made at plh-tr.cdcplymouth@nhs.net or 01752 439400.
Why is this important?
Families in Plymouth have consistently told us that they want better information, with a single entry point when they need to access specialist services for their child's additional health, disability or special educational needs. Other things parents have told us are:
- I have to repeat my story over and over again
- Why don't services talk to each other?
- I don't know who can help or what services are available.
- It feels like there are well kept secrets.
We believe that Access can achieve the following:
- Less repetition for families
- Single request for support rather than numerous referrals
- Timely response to need
- Increase families confidence in services
- Joint planning
- Less duplication
- Robust assessments to support multi-disciplinary planning
- System view of each child/young person's journey
- Greater visibility of service demand
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