CouncilAdvice & assessment teams
Help for carers
This service operates from 9am to 5pm responding to all new requests for services for children and their carers. Before we decide what service may best help a child we will make an initial assessment of the child's circumstances. In some situations the team may be able to offer advice on how to get help from another service.
Before we start we will advise you how long the assessment will take. The Government asks that Social Services complete initial assessments within seven working days. This may mean that we see you and your child in our office as well as talking to your child's school, family, doctor or other professionals who know you. We will always ask your permission to talk to others about your circumstances unless we believe that your child would suffer serious harm if we delayed our assessment.
Following completion of our assessment we may offer to provide services. If we decide to do this we will, in conjunction with you, produce a care plan to say what social services thinks should happen to help your child and family.
If we consider that your family circumstances need intensive support we may undertake a core assessment. This is a more detailed assessment than an initial assessment.
The Government asks that we complete core assessment within 35 working days and this usually requires that we visit you at home as well as talking to other professionals and your family. If during our assessment we discover that you need services to help your child with a serious problem we will not wait until the core assessment is finished before we provide you with help.
If our assessment finds that your family needs help for more than a short period we will ask our colleagues in the Family Support and Protection Teams to offer you this support.
The teams
Advice and assessment teams offer the first point of contact for families seeking help from Children's Services. The two teams operate along an east-west boundary with those living in the east served by Gladstone Place and those in the west by Cheviot House. Contact details are provided below.
How to contact us
Families living in the west of the borough
Advice and Assessment West
Cheviot House
227-223 Commercial Road
London E1
Tel: 020 7364 5006
Families living in the east of the borough
Advice and Assessment East
Gladstone Place
1 Ewart Place
Bow
London E3
Tel: 020 7364 5006
Young carers
Young carers are young people aged between four and 18 years whose lives are in some way restricted because of the need to take responsibility or care for someone in their family with a long-term illness, disability, mental health issues, an alcohol or substance misuse problem or HIV.
Young carers can be particularly vulnerable and in need of specialist support and advice. Tower Hamlets Social Services works in partnership with The Carers Centre.
Young carers may be entitled to services under the NHS and Community Care Act 1990 and Children Act 1989. They may have rights to services based on assessment undertaken by our advice and assessment teams.
Young carers can contact the centre:
21 Brayford Square
London E1 0SG
Tel: 020 7790 1765
How to contact us
Contact Social Services at your nearest area office or the appropriate specialist team. Offices are open Monday to Friday – times vary.
When you contact us it is important to tell us that you are a carer. You can have your needs assessed through a carer’s assessment on your own, or at the same time as a community care assessment/review, for the needs of the person you are caring for.
If the person you care for is in a local hospital then the Social Services team based there can also be asked to do a carer’s assessment before discharge. Your needs and views should be sought as part of any discharge plan.
