Our team offer help to the following people:
- Children - contact the Duty and Assessment Team on 01492 575111
- People aged 18 - 25 - contact Single Point of Access Team on 0300 456 1111
- Carers - visit our Carers pages for further information.
A member of our team will carry out a needs assessment, which involves the following:
- looking at your circumstances
- assessing the personal outcomes you want to achieve
- looking at any barriers you have to achieving your personal outcomes
- identifying any risks to you if your personal outcomes are not achieved
- identifying your strengths and capabilities
The assessment will be a conversation between you and/or your family and the social care officer to work out how to meet your care and support needs. The assessment must identify solutions and how they will be delivered. All five of the elements listed above must be taken into account in the assessment, and from this, a decision will be reached about which needs are eligible to receive care and support from the Disability Service.
If you have an assessment that shows you should have help to meet your care needs, instead of arranging care for you, we can give you the money instead which you can spend on getting the support you need. This is called a Direct Payment.
Early Intervention and Prevention Team
In some cases, you may be referred to the Early Intervention & Prevention Team which comprises of sensory impairment specialist workers and occupational therapists. They offer a first response to individuals who have been referred to the Disability Service under the following criteria:
- people under 65 who have a physical disability
- children and adults of all ages who have a learning disability or who have a sensory impairment
The team includes:
Occupational Therapists
Occupational Therapists in the Early Intervention & Prevention Team look at enabling people with disabilities to become more independent in what they want to do. In addition, they can also assess for equipment and adaptations which will promote independence. If the property is not suitable for adaptations, the Occupational Therapist can refer to Housing Solutions for re-housing.
Sense Communicator Guides
Conwy have specialist workers provided by the voluntary organisation Sense based with the Early Intervention & Prevention Service. Communicator Guides are trained to provide support with communication, mobility and access to information for people who have sight and hearing loss – known as acquired deaf /blindness. Their role is to support the person to keep their independence, join in with their local community and to make the quality of their life better.
Rehabilitation Officers can help people to stay independent, regain lost skills, or rebuild confidence following sight loss. This could be through giving you information, equipment, encouragement, training or referral to other agencies. A vision test can help you to understand your condition and maximise the use of your remaining vision. Hospital services can investigate medical needs but rehabilitation support is more practical and could help, whatever your sight condition or level of vision. A vision test will show any problems with your sight and the Visual Rehabilitation Officers will give advice about how to deal with the sight loss and the vision you still have.
Advocacy
As part of our commitment to advocacy, we believe that you should be able to access advocacy services to support you to have a voice in the decisions that affect your life. The Disability Service works with advocacy organisations for children and adults. If you think you would benefit from advocacy services you can self-refer or ask your social care officer to refer you.
Care and support for people living in Wales is changing. To find out more, please watch the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 Videos