Guiding Families Through Recovery: How CSRS Can Help

The Client Support and Rehabilitation Service (CSRS) is a complementary in-house service within the Injury Services Group at Ashtons Legal, which supports our clients and their families in guiding them through their rehabilitation journey and accessing all the necessary community services.

When children are involved and sustain life-changing injuries, it is particularly distressing for families, and they need time and support to come to terms with what has happened, adjust to the idea of what life may look like for their child and sometimes they need ongoing advice and support from CSRS to access everything they need to meet their child’s needs.

Ben Ward, a clinical negligence solicitor and partner at Ashtons Legal, was instructed by the parents of Client A following an injury at birth which had a profound impact on the child’s development.

CSRS were instructed to support the family when Client A was 18 months old, and the extent of the developmental delays the child was suffering with as a result of their injuries was becoming more obvious.

At this time, the child’s development was being supported by several different NHS professionals, including a community paediatrician, physiotherapist, occupational therapist, speech and language therapist, dietician, health visitor and GP.

CSRS conducted a detailed assessment of needs for Client A and commenced a package of support to assist the family with moving forward.

Welfare and Disability Benefits

When a family finds themselves in a situation where they have significant caring responsibilities, this often affects their ability to work, and they need to access welfare and disability benefits.

CSRS conducted a benefit check to identify what benefits the child and family were entitled to, and CSRS supported the family with advice and in the completion of applications for Universal Credit, Council Tax Reduction, Carers Allowance and Child Disability Living Allowance.

Social Care Provision

Social care support and having a disability social worker on board for disabled children can be highly beneficial to both the child and family.

Children who meet the eligibility criteria can receive funding for carers to look after them to give their parents respite from their caring role, and this financial support can be provided in different ways, depending on the parents’ wishes. i.e. The parents can be awarded Direct Payments where they organise to employ carers themselves, or funding can be paid directly to a care agency or other respite placement.

A separate carers’ assessment enables carers to access a carers’ fund, which also aims to support them in their caring role. This type of funding can be awarded for many different reasons, such as funding a weekend away, therapy, or even purchasing a laptop, should the carer find it difficult to leave the house to go shopping, for example.

The family were not accessing the social care support they were entitled to from their local authority, and so advice and support were provided to request an assessment of the child’s needs and a carer’s assessment to identify the client’s parents’ needs as carers via the online portal on their local authority website.

Education Provision

The family were guided by CSRS to access provision from Portage, a home help educational service which aims to support families with a disabled child’s development until such time as they are ready to access nursery school provision.

CSRS was also able to guide the parents around free access to nursery placements for children in receipt of Disability Living Allowance from the age of 2, instead of the usual free service, which children at that time were eligible to receive from the age of 3.

When the time approached for starting nursery, CSRS supported the parents with an application for an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP).

An EHCP is a legally binding document between the parents and the local authority which identifies all the child’s special educational needs and what provision will be made to meet these needs.

CSRS guided the parents on gathering all the appropriate medical and other evidence needed in advance of the application and in completing the application paperwork.

Ongoing guidance and support were provided during the 20-week assessment process, including what to do when a local authority is not meeting the set timeline for responses within the process.

CSRS also provided the parents with guidance on the wording contained within the document to ensure it was specific and measurable, and so could be enforced against their local authority should the nursery school not meet the legal obligations contained within the contract.

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With all the above processes, there are periodic reviews, and so families may need to access CSRS support over a long period of time. CSRS support can therefore go on for many years, especially when a child is involved and there is a lengthy period of time before any interim funds become available to help support the child’s immediate needs.

CSRS aims to provide support across a wide range of areas, and families can access this support when needed during their time as a client of Ashtons Legal LLP, where identified as appropriate and agreed between CSRS, the parents and their lawyer.

If you believe we can assist you when pursuing a Medical Negligence claim, please get in contact with us on 0330 191 4835 or fill out our online enquiry form.

Our experienced team of lawyers will be able to offer advice and guide you through every step of the claims process, and our in-house rehabilitation coordinators can help to support you through your recovery.