A parent carer needs assessment is a free assessment of your own support needs as the parent of a disabled child. In England you can request one as of right, and your child needs no formal diagnosis. It looks at how caring affects you, not at your child's needs, which are looked at separately. The council weighs up your health, your sleep, your work, your relationships and whether you get any time of your own, and whether it is reasonable for you to keep providing the care you do.
Who is entitled, and where the right comes from
A "parent carer" means someone aged 18 or over who cares for a disabled child they have parental responsibility for. The right sits in section 17ZD of the Children Act 1989, which was added by the Children and Families Act 2014 and has applied since April 2015. The wording is plain: where it looks like you may need support, or where you simply ask for an assessment, the council must assess whether you have support needs and what they are. So a request is not a favour you are asking for. It triggers a legal duty.
One thing the council websites and charity pages often bury: your child does not need a formal diagnosis. What matters is that the child is disabled and that your family is someone the council could provide children's services to, not whether a clinic has put a label on things yet. If a social worker tells you to come back once you have a diagnosis, that is a misunderstanding of the law, and you can say so.
What it looks at and what it can lead to
The assessment is a conversation about your life as a carer. Be honest about the hard parts: the broken sleep, the appointments, the toll on your job and your other children, the fact you have not had a break. Depending on what it finds, the support that can follow includes:
- short breaks, so you get some regular time off from caring;
- a direct payment, which is money you can use to arrange that support yourself, including paying for a break;
- practical help, emotional support, or help getting back into work.
The council should set out what it will do in a plan. An assessment does not guarantee you will be given services, and if the answer is no help, you can challenge that through the council's complaints process. But for a lot of worn-down parents, this is the route to respite they did not know they could ask for.
For the surrounding support, see what grants are available for parents of disabled children and what flexible working rights parent carers have.
Where the law comes from
Related
This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.