Support for Young People in Care

Children and Families Practice Teams

There are three Children & Families Practice Teams in West Lothian who offer support to a range of children and their families. Some will be receiving a service voluntarily while others will have social work involvement as a result of statutory responsibilities of the Practice Teams, e.g. following a decision of a Children's Hearing to place a child or young person on a supervision order.

Practice Team staff work alongside many partner agencies including Education, Health, SCRA and the Police. They also work alongside voluntary sector organisations and other teams within Children and Families.

Also, based with the Children and Families Practice Team as are throughcare social workers who will support looked after and accommodated young people with their transition out of care.

Service Standards

We will:

• respond to referrals within 10 working days
• provide a high quality service as judged by our customers
• provide the information you need in ways which are easy to understand and meet your needs and preferences
• ensure our staff behave professionally in all aspects of their dealings with you
• work with you to achieve the best outcomes for children

Objectives

We will:

• carry out child protection investigations in partnership with our colleagues in the Police and Health according to inter-agency procedure
• prepare reports for the Reporter (SCRA) in time for decisions to be made
• prepare reports for child protection and looked after children meetings in time for children, young people, families and carers to read them over
• visit each child or young person on a new home based supervision order within 15 working days of the order being made
• allocate a social worker to every child or young person on the child protection register or looked after by the council
• create a care plan for every child and young person with a social worker
• involve service users and partner agencies in agreeing and reviewing the care plan
• ensure that a pathway assessment is completed for all looked after and accommodated young people which will inform their transition plan for moving on from local authority care

Further information on the work of the Practice Teams can be obtained by contacting your local social work centre. Throughcare social workers are based within Livingston Social Work Centre - see contact details on this page.