What is the service?
The Children’s Trust interdisciplinary community neurorehabilitation team (CNRT) will deliver high quality, specialist and integrated neurorehabilitation to children and young people living with acquired brain injury. This may be from a traumatic injury or illness (e.g. stroke, brain tumour, meningitis, encephalitis, hypoxia).
The service aims to optimise:
• physical, cognitive, social, and psychological function;
• participation for the child or young person;
• the quality of life for the child or young person, and support for the wider family unit.
As a result, it is anticipated the stress and burden on their family will reduce.
Who can access the service?
Any child or young person aged 0-18 with an acquired brain injury, suspected or confirmed, new or historical, who has needs/goals which would benefit from support from a specialist team can be referred into the service. The service is exclusively for children and young people who live in and/or are registered with a GP in Birmingham or Solihull.
We continue to develop plans for community neurorehabilitation services in other areas across the country. For further information on our services, please visit Our Services pages.
How will the service be delivered?
Our team will provide specialist assessment and goal-directed neurorehabilitation. The majority of this will be delivered in the community setting (e.g. the child’s home or school), either in collaboration with the child’s community service or in isolation. Services will work together to develop flexible and adaptable pathways, pro-actively supporting children to be discharged from hospital (when medically stable) through to long term follow up, review and support.
What therapy disciplines will the service cover?
As an interdisciplinary team, core specialisms will include:
• Psychology
• Speech and language therapy
• Physiotherapy
• Occupational therapy
The service will also be supported by a rehabilitation assistant, and have access to additional supporting services based in the hospital and/or community as needed, working collaboratively with the whole network around the child, including local services and schools to support access to education.
We are currently recruiting for the above roles and further information can be found by visiting Our Jobs page, or by downloading the relevant candidate pack below.
Where will the roles be based?
Members of our community neurorehabilitation team will be home-based (with full IT equipment and support provided), travelling across the Birmingham and Solihull region to deliver rehabilitation in the child’s environment (at home, in school etc.), This will include linking with Birmingham Children’s Hospital and existing statutory services to support discharge planning and transition into the community.
Regular team meetings will be planned in person and virtually, bringing the team together to discuss cases, plan interdisciplinary work and collaborate.
How is the service funded?
As a commitment to achieving our ambition of supporting every child in the UK with an acquired brain injury, The Children’s Trust is funding a three year pilot of this new service. This includes all the set-up and running costs, and costs to evaluate the service in demonstrating outcomes to secure long-term funding.
When will the service launch?
We are working towards this new service launching in early 2023 – much work has already been done in laying the foundations for what will be an exciting development in supporting children and young people in the area. We’re now ready to recruit passionate allied health professionals to join our team in readiness for the service launching
