Shropshire Council are undertaking a consultation process to explore how they can deliver their duty to deliver Short Breaks services for children and young people up to 18 years with disabilities or additional needs living in Shropshire. The consultation is reflecting on:

• Early Help and targeted short breaks activities currently provided through the All In Programme, delivered by Actio on behalf of Shropshire Council.

• Specialist short breaks including activities and include overnight short breaks currently provided through assistance in the home ome, Action for Children (Bradbury House, Holiday Club, Saturday Club), and other care arrangements.

As Actio, currently delivering the All In Programme, we encourage Parent Carers, Children and Young People, Practitioners, and Activity Providers to respond to the consultation. To find out more about the consultation, click here.

 

As a commissioned deliverer as part of the Targeted Short Breaks offer in Shropshire, Actio are keen to see the Short Breaks offer be more responsive to communities needs.

We believe the range of opportunities has improved through our involvement in the Short Breaks offer and that we have proactively engaged and supported providers more effectively and with meaningful impact on their wider deliver and engagement opportunities.

We have responded to the needs of the community that have engaged with us to increase the variety of opportunities and try new locations with providers that are able and willing to deliver in different places across Shropshire. This has been informed by prioritising areas where there is a greater number of registered members and where providers are open to trailing delivery of their activities. Some of these have been successful, and some have not. We are committed to exploring expansion where there are identified gaps in geographical delivery, activity type, or to support a wider range of needs. We have attracted additional funding to enable greater investment in the activity offer, however we recognise there are still funding limitations which impact on when where and how activities are delivered and therefore not meeting everyone’s needs.

 

We would like to see the Short Breaks offer develop a clear and well-articulated criteria for the variety of Short Breaks opportunities. It would need to describe clearly what levels of needs can reasonably be met within each part of the Short Breaks offer. This should consider a better system to enable and facilitate specialist support for a child/young person to access Targeted Short Breaks where their needs may require one to one support (which could include personal care, medical needs, behaviours that challenge, and emotional regulation). This should also consider the ability of providers to assess needs effectively, such as a more robust and effective membership/access model.

We would consider it a vital improvement for the offer to include a navigation role to empower choice and control for families accessing Short Breaks. We would expect to see this developed in partnership with providers and Short Breaks users so that it may support families to make informed choices, develop greater understanding of the offer, and support relationships between families and providers. We would hope to see the role empowering providers to develop their offer, skills, and understanding of the community they work with.

 

It has been identified from our work with providers that access to training is challenging and while we are aware of initiatives and opportunities through Shropshire Council, it would be beneficial to consider the inclusion of any providers (directly funded or otherwise) within the internal training and traded services offers to support their development. This would impact the Short Breaks offer by improving the quality of the provision made available.

 

As Actio, we are committed to improving access to activities in the community for the SEND community. We hope that the outcomes from the consultation result in commissioning opportunities that respond to insight and feedback gained throughout the process.

Currently Actio is commissioned to deliver the Targeted Short Breaks offer until the end of March 2025. We will provide further updates on this when we know more.