Personal Budgets

Being a parent/carer is the most rewarding experience but it can also be tough, especially if your child has a special educational need or disability. 

Sometimes families need to access additional support for their child - this extra support might include:

• Additional support from education to ensure that a child’s learning needs are met
• Additional support from Health where a child has a complex, long-term and/or life limiting condition
• Additional support from social care where a child needs additional and individual support at home, or where the family need a short break from caring, or where support is needed so that the child and the family can have the same experiences as other families.

Personal budgets change the way services work with families. 

Instead of a family being provided with a service, a budget is identified and work takes place to plan how this can best be used to meet the child or family’s needs. 

This can be by purchasing existing services or by developing new and imaginative ways of using the money.  The money might be held by the Council or the South Tees Clinical Commissioning Group and used in agreement with the family, held by a third party, or paid directly into a bank account set up by the family for this purpose.

We have produced a booklet to explain what a Personal Budget is and what you need to think about if you would like some of the support provided to your child, young person, adult and family to be delivered in this way. We hope you find it useful and that it answers some of your questions. Please download it underneath Related Links on the right hand side of this page (or at the bottom if you are on the mobile site).