SCAYT+

SCAYT+ is a multidisciplinary team of Emotional Health Workers, Social Workers and Clinical Psychologists providing a county-wide service promoting positive mental health and emotional wellbeing for children and young people who are looked after and adopted that Lancashire has a responsibility for. We are part of Lancashire County Council's fostering team.

We offer lots of different types of support because children and families have different needs. The types of support we offer include:

  • Training
  • Groups
  • Support and advice to social workers and professionals
  • Support and advice to school staff
  • Support and advice to carers
  • Work with children/ young people and their carers together

Accessing support from SCAYT+

Either your child's Social Worker or your Supervising Social Worker can make a referral to SCAYT+. If you ask them to make a referral give them as much information as you can about the problem and what you have already tried to do to help. We look at new referrals every Monday so your Social Worker will usually get a response in about a week.

What happens next?

Once a referral is accepted you'll be invited to an appointment we call an 'Initial Consultation'. This is the first meeting with SCAYT+ where we try to find out as much as we can, so that we can all decide together what will be helpful for your child and your family. We will usually invite you (carers), your Supervising Social Worker and the Child's Social Worker to this meeting so that we can get as much information as possible.

After this meeting we get our heads together with our team and plan what help we can offer. We'll get back to you and let you know as soon as possible and usually within a week.

Support and advice we might give

We know that most foster carers have a lot of experience with children and young people and have often parented their own children very successfully. However, most looked after children have experienced loss and trauma and so you may find that your foster child is not responding to your parenting in the way you expect, or that after many years of excellent care they continue to have difficulties.

We will usually offer you several meetings so that together we can understand why your child is struggling and what they need to feel better. We can help you to offer therapeutic care to your child, which can help them to make sense of their traumatic past and find greater security.

Training from SCAYT+

You can book on to SCAYT+ day 1 and 2 courses via the training portal:

SCAYT+ Day 1 - Will give you an understanding of the impact of early trauma on brain development. It should help you understand why your child behaves the way they do. This course also provides an introduction to therapeutic care and PACE.

SCAYT+ Day 2 - Once you have completed SCAYT+ day 1 you can come to Day 2! This will provide a more in-depth understanding of therapeutic care and PACE as well as focusing on your own wellbeing.

Nurturing Attachments- This is a 14 week group based training course which can only be accessed via individual referral to SCAYT+. This intensive training course gives you an in-depth understanding of trauma, brain development and attachment as well as therapeutic care. It provides a space for you to apply this knowledge to your child and learn from the knowledge and experience of other carers.

We very much look forward to meeting you!