This edition updates the original ‘The Care Act and Whole-Family Approaches’ published in 2015. Ten years on, it’s in need of some updating although much of the content remains relevant and is included. Where practical, we have signposted to the most recent resources available to support embedding a whole family approach rather than reproducing them in detail here.
This document is a ‘how to’ guide for the development of a collaborative community approach to supporting the adult social care front door. Rather than being prescriptive, this guide aims to empower practitioners to think about what might work best in their local context and to provide the tools to help them.
This report identifies key aspects for establishing this new approach, encompassing core values (strength-based, co-production, empowering people) and working approaches (building networks, developing over time). These elements are essential for creating a high-quality alternative offer that operates alongside the traditional front door. The model has been reviewed and further tested in real-world applications. Rather than being prescriptive, it aims to empower practitioners to consider what will work best in their local context and provides tools to aid this process.
The Council for Disabled Children and Partners in Care and Health would like to thank the group of parent carers, experts by experience and practitioners that contributed to the development of this guide. Their expertise and insights have been invaluable throughout this process and have helped us to ensure that the contents of the guide are aligned with the needs of autistic young people who move on from children’s social care and health services.
This explainer for council staff aims to help council staff understand the concept of diagnostic overshadowing which can impact on people with a learning disability and autistic people and to give practitioners strategies to prevent diagnostic overshadowing if they come across this when working with people.
The following summary sets out a new programme of sector led improvement support for adult social care and public health services available to councils in 2025/26.
Self-advocacy plays a critical role in supporting and promoting people’s human rights. This resource provides information to support the commissioning of self-advocacy and peer-to-peer support for people with a learning disability and autistic people.
Following discussions with Principal Occupational Therapists (POTs) from the national and ADASS regional POT networks, we developed this short resource to support the occupational therapy workforce as part of council preparations for Care Quality Commission (CQC) assessment. We hope it will increase their confidence in speaking positively and confidently about their work.
This report, developed in partnership with national and regional occupational therapy leaders, explores the unique role of occupational therapists in councils. It highlights their impact across housing, health, care, and employment, and sets out what the Government can do to unlock their full potential and support delivery of their missions.
