"Since the Prime Minister's announcement about the responsibilities of education providers to support the needs of children of keyworkers and learners who are vulnerable, we will be doing our best to work alongside them to help them meet these needs.
It is important for us to be honest about the fact that whilst we are here to help individuals and their parent/ carers, we may have less care capacity to offer. We will not be automatically implementing 'school or college holiday plans', particularly where homecare services might be expected. Each case will be considered in regard to risk, need and availability of service, and approved by a Team Manager.
We are allowing greater flexibility for those using direct payments, where no DBS check is needed. This means that parents can recruit more easily for the help that they need, perhaps where a young person is home from university for example. Brokerage will keep a record of costs linked to COVID-19.
We are also working to build capacity and new types of services, prioritising care for those with the most complex needs who don't have support from a family network. We are working through how we deal with scenarios where children with complex needs must be supported, should their parents become unwell or possibly worse. Our role in the coming days is therefore changing to become more focussed on urgent and crisis response.
Thank you all for your resilience and continued support."
Andy Lawrence, Head of 0 - 25 Together Service