After 9 months of improvement activity, on Monday 6th July 2020, the Children with Disabilities (CWD) Service at Wokingham Borough Council launched a new service structure. Please see details as follows:

The Children with Disabilities Team, which encompasses the Social Work Team and the Occupational Therapy Team.

Email: DctDuty@wokingham.gov.uk

The Short Breaks and Early Help Service which encompasses the expanded Short Breaks and Early Help Team and our existing range of targeted Early Help provisions for children with disabilities. These include ASSIST, FIRST, Bridges, Family Based Short Breaks, Saturday Club and the CAN Network.

Email Short Breaks & FIRST Teams - ShortBreaksCo-ordinator@wokingham.gov.uk

Email ASSIST - assist@wokingham.gov.uk

Email CAN Network - CAN.Network@wokingham.gov.uk

With the Short Breaks Team expanding in both size and function, the service (now known as the Short Breaks and Early Help Team), will offer both Short Breaks support and more generalised Early Help support.

We have also welcomed 8 new permanent team members to the service, some who are new to Wokingham, and others who have been working with us on a temporary basis and have made the decision to stay. They are:

• Shantie Critchley – Team Manager, Children with Disabilities

• Manjit Tamber - Assistant Team Manager, Children with Disabilities

• Catherine Alstrom, Social Worker, Children with Disabilities

• Mercedes Zaph – Assistant Team Manager, Short Breaks and Early Help Team

• Elissa Brockett – Short Breaks and Early Help Co-ordinator

• Sally Watchman – Short Breaks and Early Help Co-ordinator (commencing 03.08.20)

• Harriet Lynch – Occupational Therapist, Children with Disabilities Team

• Bipin Kumar – Occupational Therapist, Children with Disabilities Team

They join other long-standing members of the Children with Disabilities Service to support in our aim of delivering quality services to children with disabilities in Wokingham.

Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact us and we would be happy to discuss these with you. More details of the teams and their contact details are here: CWD Team & Contact details

Kelli Scott

Service Manager

Children with Disabilities and Early Help