Provider services
Fostering Team
The Fostering service comprises of 4 teams.
The Recruitment and Assessment Team recruit and assess all new foster carers, and supported lodgings carers and also assess and support all private fostering arrangements.
We have 2 fostering support teams who support all our in-house carers to provide high standards of therapeutic care to our children in care.
The Connected Carer team assesses all potential kinship placements for children, including viability assessments, connected carer assessments and Special Guardianship Order assessments. The team also provide post order support to all special guardian carers. The team manager of this team also oversees the family time (contact) service.
Adoption Team
All adoption services are managed by Adoption Partnership South East, which is the Regional Adoption Agency run in partnership with Kent County Council and London Borough of Bexley.
This service:
- recruits, assesses and supports new prospective adopters
- family find for children with an adoption plan - including those in need of early permanence placements
- provide post adoption support to all adopters, birth family and adult adoptees seeking access to their birth records.
Parklands
Parklands is a short breaks home which is managed in line with the Care Standards Act 2000 and the Children Home Regulations 2015. Children and young people, aged between 5 to 18 years, are referred to Parklands by the 0 to 25 Disability Team.
Parklands also operates an after-school club which runs during term time. Children attend after school until 6pm when they are collected by their parents or carers.
Parklands short breaks home is designed for children with disabilities, learning difficulties and complex needs. It allows children and young people and their families to have regular breaks. Children access a range of stimulating social, recreational opportunities and experiences.
Multi-Disciplinary Service
The Multi-Disciplinary service was set up to offer intensive support and wrap around intervention to children and families that receive statutory support from other teams in children services.
The service is comprised of the following teams:
- Family Group Conferencing team
- Family Partnership
- Adolescent Multi-Disciplinary team
- Specialist Assessment team.
Family Group Conferencing team
The Family Group Conferencing team offers family group conferences to support families to create safety plans and allow children to stay safe and achieve in the care of their parents or with extended family members or friends.
Family Partnership
The Family Partnership works with parents with multiple and complex needs who had already lost children from their care (either through adoption, longer term foster care or to extended family placements).
It aims to enable them to make changes and improvements to their lives that will help them to parent better in the future.
The Family Partnership supports parents at various stages on the continuum of service delivery, for example:
- while pregnant and working with the local council under a variety of plans the unborn child is subject to child protection plans and pre-proceedings
- during proceedings
- after the permanent removal of children from their care.
Adolescent Multi-Disciplinary team
The Adolescent Multi-Disciplinary team delivers specialist assessments and interventions to adolescents at risk of harm due to contextual safeguarding concerns and their families.
The multi-disciplinary team offers bespoke interventions to young people and their families to address risks and prevent escalation into higher level of statutory intervention (for example, from Child in Need into Chid Protection) or divert young people from the edge of care. The team consists of early help workers, family workers and youth workers.
Specialist Assessment team
The Specialist Assessment team delivers specialist parenting assessments and interventions to families where children are subject to pre-proceedings or proceedings under Public Law Outline.
Youth Service
Medway Youth Service works with young people 8 to 19 years old (or 25 for those with a disability).
They offer somewhere to go, something to do and someone to talk to in their leisure time. They provide a range of social, sports, creative and fun activities, supporting young people to learn new skills and socialise in safe, positive environments.
The Youth Service is a firm believer in young people's participation and youth voice, planning activities with young people, and supporting them to develop projects tackling issues that concern them.