Do pooled budgets help children with complex needs?

There are many families with children with complex needs in the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire area. Support has historically been focused at the point when these families are in crisis. This support has often been about placing children in homes or specialist care outside their families and communities. Not only is this expensive, but it may not be what the families or children would choose for themselves.

Children with complex needs include:

• children and young people who are the subject of a child protection plan
• children and young people in care (sometimes called ‘looked after children’)
• care leavers
• children and young people for whom adoption is planned
• children and young people with severe and complex special educational needs
• children and young people with complex disabilities or complex health needs
• children and young people diagnosed with significant mental health problems
• young offenders involved with youth justice services

Outcomes for these children as they grow up are not always good, and the trauma caused by being removed often causes further harm. Removing children means they don’t have vital support networks to draw on. This makes it harder for them to find sustainable, local solutions to the challenges they face, and maintain their identity and sense of belonging.

Support for these families needs to come from both the NHS and local authorities, working closely together.