1. Oxfordshire County Council Sensory Teams

2. Senior Practitioner/ Social Worker
Neelam Ahmed
Senior Practitioner/ Social Worker
Hearing Support Team

3. Oxfordshire County Council
Social & Community Services
Adult Social Care
Sensory Teams
Hearing Support Visual Support
Team Team

4. Sensory Teams
County-wide team who specialise in working with adults and children whose sight or hearing loss is having an impact on their day-to-day lives. As well as completing Specialist Assessments we also undertake assessments for Packages of Care for those with a Sensory Loss.
We are a ‘front door’ service so service users, their carers or other professionals can contact us directly. This can be either from our website contact page, which also has the Sign Video platform or via , text message, telephone or in person.
We have a Service Level Agreement with CEF – enables us to work with children who have a hearing or visual loss.

5. Team Structure 1x Team Manager who oversees both teams. Hearing Team
1x Senior Social Worker leading the team
3x Specialist Social Workers including 1x Deafblind Specialist Worker
2x Support Workers
2x Equipment Officers
Visual Team
1x Senior Rehabilitation Worker leading the team
4x Visual Impairment Rehabilitation Officers

6. Hearing Team - Staff Senior Social Worker
Provide monthly supervisions to the social workers in the team and indirectly supervise the rest of the team.
Hold a complex case load and support social workers/ and other team members with their cases were issues arise
Support with Transitions
Manage the Sign Up Project
Run half day Sensory Awareness sessions to OCC professionals
Developing a ‘Progression Framework’ for support workers to enable them to further develop their skills and progress to the next pay Grade once they have successfully completed the progression workbook
Support with the Review documentation of the service
Promote ‘Good News Stories’

7. Hearing Team – Staff cont…
Specialist Social Workers
- Hold BSL skills
Undertake Specialist Assessments including Deafblind assessments.
Social work in intervention includes: Learning disability / Mental health / drug abuse / alcohol abuse / support with medical intervention
- Support with Housing / homelessness
Support with Child Protection work as well as preventative work
Support with PIP /other benefit applications
3 workers (including the Senior Practitioner) are qualified Best Interest Assessors for DOLs

8. Hearing Team Staff cont…
Support Workers
Have BSL signing skills
Undertake Specialist Assessments
Provide low level ongoing support
Assist social workers with cases
Undertake Adaptive Equipment Assessments
Equipment Officer
Provide Equipment presentations and clinics

9. Equipment We issue a wide range – below are a few items we issue:
Pager systems – vibrating alert
Vibrating or flashing alarm clocks
Flashing doorbells
Headsets or loop systems for television and one to one communication
Demonstration for specialist telephones
Minicoms, text phones & mobile apps

10. Partnership Working
Equipment providers – knowledge of new equipment on the market
Quarterly meetings with Adult Audiology Team
Contract with Deaf Direct to provide fortnightly letters and correspondence sessions for clients – low level support to interpret correspondence and support with telephone calls.
Work closely with our Adult Social Care Colleagues and joint work some complex cases
Interagency Meetings- with Speech & Language Therapy, Special Needs Education, Paediatric Audiology, Oxfordshire's Deaf Childrens Society & NDCS
Attend New-born Hearing Screening Clinic meetings

11. Registration
People wishing to be recorded with a hearing loss will receive an OCC registration card which they can use as proof of their hearing loss and in some cases receive discounts at cinema’s etc. Their name is placed on a record document.
OCC are required to hold the Registration for all those with a visual loss within the OCC County. A Certificate of Visual Impairment (CVI) is completed by an ophthalmologist and forwarded to the Visual Team who record this on a register.

12. Thank you
Any questions?