The North East London Keyworking Service works with children and young people with learning disabilities and or autism, aged 0-25 years old who have complex needs.

North East London NHS Foundation Trust will be delivering this service throughout the boroughs of:

• Barking & Dagenham
• Havering
• Waltham Forest
• Redbridge
• City & Hackney
• Newham
• Tower Hamlets

The aim of the Keyworking Service is to ensure children, young people and their families’ voices are heard and represented and they have the right support from services at the right time. To either avoid admission or reduce length of stay in specialist hospital and help improve their experiences and outcomes.

The new Keyworking Service will not replace any health and social care workers currently supporting you. Keyworking case managers will work in partnership with support providers, with children and young people and their families or carers, to help make the right health and care decisions.

The Keyworking Service will be available for 0-17 year olds from September 2023 and 18 -25 year olds by Monday, 1st April 2024.

The Keyworking Service will tailor the support it provides based on each child, young person and family’s needs.  

Key workers will work with the services already involved in care and treatment to identify where additional support is most required, to make sure that their involvement is adding value and not duplicating or disrupting existing support. 

Sometimes the keyworking case managers may work directly with you and your family, or they may work with local services (social care, education, health etc) to join up care and treatment and meet any gaps. 

Examples of what they may do to help avoid admission or support an earlier discharge include:

• Advocate for you, and your family, to ensure your voices are heard, understood, and respected
• Ensure you have the right support from services within a timely manner at the right time
• Support services to work with you in a joined-up way
• Represent you when you may not feel confident or able to speak up for yourself
• Give you information and guidance in a way that will help improve the quality of life for both you and your family
• Help you to work with and have access to health, care, education and voluntary organisations
• Build trust as someone that will be a consistent presence for the child or young person and family during any transition. For example, helping you with the transition into adulthood and adult services or between phases of education

To access keyworking support, children and young people must be listed on a local dynamic support register. You can ask a professional working with you to refer you, or you can make a self-referral by contacting the dynamic support register holders. 

A dynamic support register is a list of people with learning disabilities and autism who need support because they at risk of going into hospital if they do not get the right care and treatment in the community. No one is added to the register without their consent. More information is available at: 

Easy-read-version-of-the-Dynamic-support-register-and-Care-Education-and-Treatment-Review-policy-and-guide-Jan.pdf (england.nhs.uk)

Dynamic Support Register and Care (Education) and Treatment Review policy and guidance | Local Government Association

It is your choice to work with a keyworking case manager or not. If you don’t want to work with a keyworking case manager right now, that is ok. You will still get support from all the other services that are currently in place, and we may be able to direct you to other people or services that can offer further support.

If you decide not to work with a keyworking case manager right now, but change your mind in the future, that is ok. Contact the dynamic support register holder or ask your health / social care worker.

If you decide to work with a keyworking case manager now but in the future decide you don’t want to anymore, that is fine too. We can look at other ways to make sure you get the support you need.