Community Support Team for People with Learning Disabilities
Bro Morgannwg NHS Trust
Directorate of Social Services and Housing, City and County of Swansea
Who is this leaflet for?
This leaflet is for you if you have learning disabilities.
This means that you may have difficulties in learning
and using the skills needed to lead an ordinary
life without the support of other people.
These difficulties would have started when you were a child. You might have been born with the disability. You may also have another disability such as epilepsy, physical disability, problems hearing or seeing or mental illness.
This leaflet is also for you if you are caring for someone with learning disabilities.
What is this leaflet about?
This leaflet is about the Community Support Team (CST) and how they can help you to receive the support you need to live as independently as possible in the community.
Who is the Community Support Team?
In the team there are Social Services staff who work for the City and County of Swansea and health staff who work for Bro Morgannwg NHS Trust. They are based at Herbert House. Information on how to contact the staff is on the last page of this leaflet.
In the team there are social workers, community nurses, psychologists, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and physiotherapists.
The team also works closely with the consultant psychiatrist for Learning Disability Services.
What help and support can we give you?
We will help you identify what your needs are and the best way to meet them. For example we may be able to provide an opportunity for you to learn new skills and meet other people through day services or work, or we may arrange for you to have a break away from home in respite care
How are your needs assessed and reviewed?
To find out what your needs are a nurse or social worker called a care manager will come and talk to you and your carer or advocate. They will spend time getting to know you, and find out about any difficulties you have. This is called an assessment.
Your needs, and how best to support you, will be agreed with you and your carer or advocate. This is written down and called a care plan. You and your carer will be given a copy of the care plan to keep.
We will meet with you and your carer at least once a year to check how things are going and to see if you are happy with the support you are getting. This is called a review meeting. After this a new care plan will be written. You can have a review meeting before 12 months if you or your carers feel that your needs have changed a lot.
If you have any complaints
We will be happy to talk to you or your carer about any concerns you may have about the service and the help you get. The Social Work Team leader or Health Manager can be contacted at Herbert House.
If you are still not happy, you can use the Complaints Procedure for either Social Services or Bro Morgannwg.
Information sharing and confidentiality
When you get help from the CST, we will keep information about you in written records and on computer files. We will keep this information confidential, this means keeping it private. We will only share it with people who care for you when they need to know the information, or with others if we need to tell someone something to protect you or other people.
We will agree with you how your information is shared and we will normally ask your permission to share information.
Within the CST, the health and social services staff work closely together and share information so that they can provide a more effective service. This includes keeping records that are held jointly by the health and social services staff.
Both the City and County of Swansea and Bro Morgannwg NHS Trust operate an access to records policy which allows people to see information kept about them.
Contact Details
For further information please contact:
The Community Support Team
Herbert House
Charter Court
Phoenix Way
Swansea Enterprise Park
Llansamlet
Swansea
SA7 9FS
Tel: 01792 614100
Fax: 01792 614101
Email: community.support.team@swansea.gov.uk
The team is available:
9.00 am – 5.00 pm Monday-Thursday
9.00 – 4.30 Friday
If you wish to speak to staff in a language that is not English or Welsh, we can arrange for interpreter facilities by telephone. To use this free service you will need to tell us (in English) your name, the telephone number you are calling from and the language you speak. We will call you back as soon as possible with an interpreter who speaks your language.
After Hours
When the office is closed there is an answer-phone where you may leave a message.
For help in an emergency contact the Social Work Emergency Duty Team
Tel: 01792 775501
Useful Websites:
www.learningdisabilities.org.uk