OVRVIEW

Someone with a mental health condition may need support in the community. This section sets out how an adult over the age of 18 with a mental health condition can access ‘community care’ services from their local authority. This does not consider community care in relation to care or children.
•The social services department is part of your local authority (local council).
•To get help from adult social services, the first step is to find their contact details. You can then contact them and ask for a ‘community care assessment’. If your care is being managed under the ‘Care Program Approach’ (CPA), talk to your care coordinator about it.
•Social services are under a legal duty to assess anyone who may be in need of community care services.
•Your needs could include housing, employment, support at home and social needs.
•Once you have been assessed to see if you have any community care needs, an assessment will be done to see how high your needs are. If your needs are high enough to meet your local authority’s ‘eligibility criteria’ then you will have ‘eligible needs’.
•If your eligible needs are not already being met in some way (e.g. by a care) then your needs must be met by the social services department. If social services say you have eligible needs, it is unlawful for them not to meet these needs.
•You should be involved in deciding how your needs are met.
•If you have any problems during the process that you cannot resolve informally, you may wish to use the social services’ complaints process.

Why would I need community care services?

If you feel as though you are finding day-to-day life difficult, social services may be able to help. There are some problems that you may have that cannot be resolved by health services alone. For example, you may find it very hard to:
•Get out of the house
•Maintain social contact with friends and family
•Get a job or take part in education
•Clean the house
•Prepare meals or go shopping
•Keep safe
•Manage your money
•Engage in leisure activities

This is not a full list of things that social services might be able to help you with, and you should contact them for an assessment if you feel as though you are finding it hard to do things for yourself.

Some people feel embarrassed about contacting social services or think that social services are only meant to help children. Remember that there is a specific section of social services that helps adults with disabilities, and they are there to help people to be independent.

Who is entitled to community care services?

To receive adult community care services, you will need to:
•Be an adult over 18
•Be ‘ordinarily resident’ in the area where you are asking for an assessment (see ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ for more information) and
•Be assessed as having needs that meet your local authority’s eligibility criteria