Advice pls about social services

[Bambamboo]

I've got a child who has special needs and quite challenging behaviour, always had support from schools as shows this behaviour at home and school, has 2-1 support, so my question is, social services have been mentioned by school and asked if I wanted them involved ( all the stigma about it I'm crapping my pants) maybe for extra support would be put straight onto category 3 due to child having brain injury from birth so would be child in need but I've heard the child in need can go straight onto child protection with out u knowing, so has anyone had any dealing with them and what has the outcome been? Many thanks for all replays

All disabled children come under the 'child in need' category.

I imagine what's being sugggested is a Carers Assessment which would be carried out by Children's Social Care to see if you're eligible for any support.

There should be no stigma in having support from The Children with Disabilities Team, and you can always make it clear to people, that is who is involved!

As anybody can report any parent to Child Protection, I am not sure what difference it makes, having support from The Children with Disabilities Team.

We have had support from The Children with Disabilities Team and Transition Team (now Social Services are moving towards 0 - 25 teams, I believe) for years, including towards school fees. Some social workers are useless IME (take a tick box approach, done the latest assessment whatever, how can they do the least work possible...); others are very good, understand how the family works and can offer good advice! However, if DS needs social care and you need respite, then afaik, it's the only real way to get it?

Social workers can deal with schools on behalf of DS for you - for instance DD was being bullied (and told the social worker) and the school did nothing about it. The social worker told them to have a meeting with us, and send her the minutes. It was sorted!

In our experience it would be handled first by the child protection team who would then rapidly try and pass it onto to the children with disabilities team.

Both services are extremely over-stretched so do not have high expectations of what they can offer you. We got a small amount of respite for a few months but although they never discharged us they have not made any contact for a couple of years and we lack the energy to keep asking when the support offered was so minimal anyway. Hopefully, might be better in your area.