Short Breaks for disabled children and young people 2011/2012

What are Short Breaks?

A short break is defined as any service that both allows a disabled child or young person to have an enjoyable break away from their main carer, and gives their carer a break from their caring responsibilities.

Short Breaks are activities for children and young people with physical, health and learning disabilities. Disabled children and young people are able to use school holiday, after-school and weekend service with the Short Breaks scheme.

Eligibility Criteria

To be able to access the Short Breaks Core Offer a child or young person needs to meet our simple eligibility criteria -

• Age between 2 - 17 years old
• Live in Hackney on a permanent basis
• Be in receipt of Disability Living Allowance at Middle Rate or above
• Not already in receipt of a care support package from the Disabled Children's Service (DCS)

How to apply?

To apply for Short Breaks complete the Application form (Word, 174KB) on behalf of your child and provide the following eligibility documents -

• written evidence that your child is in receipt of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) at the middle rate or above; or
• written confirmation from a health or education professional who works with the child/young person which demonstrates that (s)he meets the criteria

If you have any queries or require support in filling out your application you can contact the Short Breaks team at the Hackney Ark on 020 7014 7109.

Core Offer

We have based the 2011/12 Core Offer on feedback we received from young people, parents, carers, providers and usage trends based on last year's monitoring data. 

In 2011/12 the Core Offer is -

• 20 days of holiday provision e.g. 10 days during the summer, and
• 1 after school club session a week or
• 1 weekend session a month

Children and young people that sign up for the Core Offer later on in the year will receive provision on a pro-rota basis; more details of this are available from the Short Breaks team.

The range of Short breaks available

The following short breaks services are available in Hackney -

• holiday play schemes (including school)
• specialist after school clubs
• specialist weekend clubs
• after school and weekend clubs based at universal setting
• 1 to 1 outreach support in the home and in the community

For children and young people with additional complex health support needs the Health Trust offers a specialist service to meet their needs and enable them to access a short breaks service -

• Sunday club at Kids Adventure Playground supported with nursing staff for those with additional health needs that find it difficult to access other provisions This service can be accessed through the 'Hit Squad'. For more information download Hit Squad (Word, 26KB).

More information

For more information on the Short Breaks services provided download the List of Providers (Word, 340KB

From 1 April 2011 a duty was introduced for local authorities to provide a range of short breaks to carers of disabled children, and to publish information to parents about what they can access. See more information in Hackney's Short breaks service statement (PDF 3.5MB).

To find out all the latest short breaks news and what's coming up in January to March 2012 see Short Breaks News PDF, 611KB)

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Page updated: 17 Jan 2012