Single Point of Access

SPOA is the first point of contact for East Sussex Children’s Services and is staffed by social workers, senior social workers and early help workers. The team provide advice to professionals and the public with concerns about the welfare of a child. The team now also triages referrals to CAMHS.

Multi-Agency Sharing Hub (MASH)

The MASH is a team of social workers and senior social workers, health visitors, and police officers who share and assess information about children and adults at risk of coming to harm; together they ensure the most timely, appropriate and proportionate response. MASH also provides enhanced multi-agency information sharing and decision-making practice for missing children and children vulnerable to exploitation.

Duty and Assessment Teams (DAT)

There are three teams made up of social workers and senior social workers who undertake family assessments, Section 47 enquiries, private fostering assessments, and assessment of homeless young people. They work with children and young people 0-19 years old. The work is short term and if families and children require longer term intervention they are transferred to our Family Support and Youth Support teams.

Family and Youth Support Teams (FST and YST)

Responsibility for social work support to families is transferred to Family and Youth Support Teams from the Duty and Assessment Teams. These teams are made up of social workers and senior social workers. The Family Support teams tend to work with children and families where the primary concern is about the care and experience of children under 11, whereas the Youth Support Teams have developed specialisms around working with adolescents. The Family and Youth Support Teams are responsible for: 

• on-going assessment, care planning and support to children and families requiring child in need or child protection plans 
• undertaking most of the pre-proceedings and care proceedings work in the local authority.

Looked After Children

There are currently three county-wide Looked After Children Teams. They provide social work support to looked-after children from the point at which the care plan determines that a permanent placement should be sought outside of the birth family. The team is made up of social workers and senior social workers.

Children’s Disability Service

The Children’s Disability Service (CDS) is a county-wide specialist team of social workers and senior social workers who work with children (0-19) with severe learning disabilities and complex health needs. The CDS Duty and Assessment Team (DAT) is co-located with the Children’s Disability Service Family Support and Looked After (FST/LAC) team and the teams work closely together. Responsibilities include:

• provision of information, advice, guidance and signposting 
• Family Assessments
• Section 47 enquiries
• Joint Continuing Care Assessments
• Carers’ Assessments; and
• Social Care Personal budget support plans.

Connected Families

Connected Families is a countywide, multi-agency service delivering creative, intensive support to enable children on the edge of care to live safely at home, or to keep children closer to home with a focussed plan for the time they spend in care, working to rebuild relationships and options to return. Connected Coaches and Clinical practitioners sitting within the team work alongside the social worker and the child’s network to support families to navigate services and develop sustainable solutions. The team offer therapeutic and practical support out of hours and at weekends.

Connect Families Intervention Practitioners (CFIP) are a multi-disciplinary team of adult facing practitioners, co-located in Locality Social Work teams and delivering evidence-based, targeted interventions to parents presenting with problematic drug and/or alcohol use, mental ill health and/or domestic abuse. CFIP work with families at level 4, where children are open to the Locality Social Work teams on child in need or child protection plans.

Through Care Team

The Through Care Service is responsible for supporting young people across the county whilst they prepare to leave care and after they leave. The service includes social workers and senior social workers, personal advisors, a mental health nurse, and the virtual school. The Through Care Service also includes a team to support and assess Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children.

Fostering

The Fostering Service is responsible for the recruitment, preparation, assessment, supervision and support of foster carers and is divided into two functional teams. In addition there are two specialist services, a Placement Support Scheme which provides practical and psychological support to foster carers and children and a Treatment Fostering Scheme which supports harder to place children.

Adoption and Permanence

The Adoption and Permanence Team is responsible for recruitment, preparation and assessment of prospective adopters, family finding, linking and matching of children, assessment and provision of post-adoption support for children and adoptive carers.

Under 25’s Substance Misuse Service

The Under 25’s Substance Misuse Service provides substance misuse treatment to young people and their families up to the age of 25.

The service is a multi-disciplinary team of qualified practitioners e.g. nurses, social workers who provide advice, guidance, management, and treatment programmes to address substance misuse issues.

The services are flexible, free and available to young people and their families across the county.

There is a duty worker available to discuss referrals and provide professionals with information, advice and guidance.

The Exploitation Team

The Exploitation Team is a cross-county team working predominately with 14 – 17 year olds and their families to reduce the risk and harm associated with exposure to criminal and sexual exploitation. Our multi-disciplinary team undertakes family assessments and casework functions for children who are in Need, subject to Child Protection Plans and who are looked after by virtue of their remand status across East Sussex. Also, in the team we have the SAFER keyworkers, Contextual Safeguarding Manager and Co-ordinator who play an active role in the development and delivery of contextual responses.

Youth Justice Service

Our vision is to provide high quality youth justice services that see children as children, which focus on their strengths, enabling them to fulfil their potential and be the best they can be. We supervise and support children aged 10 to 18 years who have committed offences, helping them to develop their pro social identity and to restore the damage caused to their victims. We also offer prevention work with children who are at risk of offending or becoming involved in anti-social behaviour.

“Children in East Sussex continue to receive strong and effective support that helps to improve their lives.”

Ofsted 2023