Social Services Bulletin, Volume 26 November 2005
What do you think?
Your Health, Your Care, Your Say is a major public consultation exercise that’s now under way across the country, looking at things such as GP services, family planning, meals-on-wheels, home care, and much more.
It’s been commissioned by the Government, who are trying to find out what people want in the future from health and community care services.
Thousands of people and hundreds of organisations are taking part, and the results will be fed into a forthcoming White Paper on health and community-based services.
Here in Wigan, the results will also influence the shape of the borough’s health care provision in the years to come.
There are a range of questions, but the big three are:
- How can people look after themselves? How can we help you to take care of yourself and support you and your family in your daily lives?
- When you and your family need help and support, how, when, where and from whom do you want to get it?
- How can we help you get the right services, when you need them, and ensure your care and support is properly co-ordinated?
Consultation is taking place in a number of ways:
- an on-line questionnaire (the website address is below)
- through the Citizens Panel – a representative selection of over 1,000 residents of the borough, and
- a special ‘citizens jury’. This meeting took place on 22 October, where some 40 residents met to debate issues.
You can give your views by completing the questionnaire on our website and either e-mailing it or posting it back to us. It’s your chance to influence the national debate.
Enquiries:
Steve Peddie Assistant Director of Adult Services
Phone: 01942 827854
E-mail: s.peddie@wigan.gov.uk
Growing our own staff
In September, a group of social care modern apprentice cadets, together with their colleagues, took part in a prestigious award ceremony at the JJB Stadium at Robin Park.
The ceremony, hosted by Manchester City College, was a celebration of success for all social care staff in the council and private and voluntary sector who had achieved their NVQs in social care or social care management. The ceremony also marked the success of the first group of cadets to gain their NVQ level 2 and 3 in health and social care.
We launched our Modern Apprentice Cadet Scheme in social care two years ago, in partnership with Manchester City College. The scheme, aimed at young people between the ages of 16 and 22, introduces people to social care and the wide range of work undertaken by our Provider division.
Many of the young people considering working in social care believed it was simply about working in residential homes, but the scheme provides many more openings than this.
The modern apprentice cadets worked four days a week in their placements and attended college one day a week to complete their Btec and NVQ level 2 and 3 in health and social care. They worked with a wide range of people who use our services – people with physical disabilities, mental health problems, learning disabilities, dementia, etc., and in a wide range of settings. This then provided them with the opportunity to put what they had learned into practice.
The scheme is well supported by managers within our Provider services, as the cadets are well-trained and confident from the start. They have an opportunity to try out a variety of work situations before they apply for permanent jobs, and people who use our services are also directly involved in the training and development. All of the cadets from the first group now work for us in our Provider division.
The enthusiasm and success of the first group has meant that Wigan is now on its third intake. The new group will begin at the end of October.
Enquiries:
Julie Jeffers
Strategic Manager (Provider Services)
Phone: 01942 827852
E-mail: j.jeffers@wigan.gov.uk
Working together with families
The Families Working Together Project is a borough-wide service, designed to bring families closer together.
The project is made up of two distinct services:
- Family Groups Meetings (FGMs), and
- Mediation.
Family Group Meetings are a planning or decision-making process, which enables families to find solutions to their own problems, with the help of professionals.
One of the key principles of FGMs is that families are experts in dealing with their own problems and finding solutions to those problems. FGMs help the family to solve their problems together, and to plan what happens in the future.
Mediation can help parents going through divorce and/or separation to sort out contact arrangements for their children. It also helps to promote positive communication between the parents and/or extended family members when discussing a child’s future needs and welfare, following the separation. Staff from both FGM and Mediation services are professionally trained, respect confidentiality, are impartial and fair to people using the service.
Families can refer themselves, or can ask to be referred by an agency such as Health or Social Services, or someone else.
Some of the benefits of using the services are:
- families are able to make positive decisions about their children, given the opportunity and the information to do so;
- the involvement of friends and the wider family in a safe, relaxed environment can help to combat problems;
- families can make plans sensitive to their culture;
- the services can be used for children of any age, including new born infants;
- staff work flexible hours to meet families’ needs.
Enquiries to:
Sarah Taylor Family Group Meetings Co-ordinator
Phone: 01942 828741
E-mail: sarah.taylor@wigan.gov.uk
A ‘Dam’ good job!
Young offenders, reparation officers and conservationists from the Youth Offending Team (YOT) recently spent seven weeks transforming an ancient Wigan woodland.
Dam House in Astley is a Grade II listed building which dates back to 1650. The ‘Dam’ bit refers to the structure, which retained the water to run the mill on the estate. The building has recently undergone an impressive renovation, and is now open to host a whole host of community events. However, the woodland surrounding it certainly needed a makeover, and that’s when the custodians of Dam House (Dam House Trustees) decided to contact the Youth Offending Team.
The Youth Offending Team is one of our success stories, with a proven track record of transforming run-down and overgrown areas into community assets and places of natural beauty. Reparation officers work with young offenders who have been given community-based penalties by the courts, and put them to work on projects designed to benefit their community.
The project at Dam House involved removing unwanted shrubs and bushes from the woodland, removing hazardous trees, strimming a large orchard area and using logs to create a barrier around the car park.
After this stage was complete, the trustees met with the YOT and officers from the Red Rose Forest project to discuss the progress. The outcome was very positive, and now the trustess are making further funding bids to complete the work on this ancient woodland.
Cath Lomas from the Youth Offending Team said: “The work undertaken by the young people on community orders gives them a sense of pride, ownership and achievement, as well as providing equally important benefits in the community. We’ll be running phase two of the project next year, which will include resurfacing of the large car park area and clearing ancient ponds”.
Enquiries to:
Cath Lomas YOT Reparation Co-ordinator
Phone: 01942 487100
E-mail: c.lomas@wigan.gov.uk
Funding goes POPP..!
What is POPP?
It’s an initiative being led by the Department of Health to enable an innovative range of pilot projects for older people to be set up in the borough. The main purpose of the projects will be to:
- provide ‘person-centred’ and integrated (shared) care for older people, and
- encourage investment in preventative services which promote health, well-being and independence for older people.
In total, £60m will be made available over two years: 2006/07 (Year 1) and 2007/08 (Year 2). This sum is to be divided amongst successful partnership bids.
Application process
Wigan has submitted a bid that amounts to a little under £2m over two years.
The bidding process is in two stages. A total of 144 applications were submitted in the first stage. Wigan was one of the 44 successful bids. At the second stage only around 20 bids will be selected to go ahead and we are hoping Wigan will be successful again. The deadline for second stage applications was 9th September, with successful proposals announced towards the end of October [at the time of writing this article, we still hadn’t heard]. Successful projects are due to start by 1st May 2006.
Wigan’s application
The project we are submitting is called Enabling Independence During Changing Times. It’s about providing a variety of support for older people who are experiencing ‘difficult times’ in their lives, which will hopefully prevent a situation worsening or turning into a crisis. This includes:
- the loss of a partner
- hospital discharge and/or coping with new disabilities
- moving to a different area without family or friends
- the loss of mobility or increasing health problems, making it difficult to cope with household and other tasks
- confusion or early onset dementia
- fear of crime/victims of crime and feelings of increased vulnerability
- carers requiring timely support.
To help older people through a variety of challenging and changing times, a range of preventative initiatives have been included in our proposal. All of these have been identified by local older people themselves as important to helping them maintain their well-being and independence. They include:
- ‘Changing times’ – a support service (with trained volunteers) providing advice, information, advocacy and practical help.
- A counselling service.
- Encouraging older people to become involved and active, for example by volunteering.
- A gardening and handyperson home maintenance scheme.
- Sheltered housing improvements to enable independent living and well-being.
- Home assessments carried out by trained home assessors, linked to health and social care teams. The aim is to enable people to live safely at home and identify/resolve risk factors.
- Crime prevention awareness and support.
- Support for older people and carers from ethnic minorities.
- Promotion of physical activity for older people.
- A carers rapid response support scheme.
Partners in our POPP proposal
There are a wide range of local organisations involved in our bid – both statutory and voluntary. We believe this helps to make ours a strong bid.
But our most important and significant partners are older people themselves. We’re working hard to make sure they are informed, involved and actively engaged in helping us to shape and direct this project.
How you can help us
We are keen to hear the views of as many people as possible (particularly older people) about the project and the different initiatives we’ve mentioned. We welcome your thoughts on how you think any of them might be improved, particularly in terms of engaging and involving older people. For example, we would like to hear your views on:
- the best ways of keeping older people informed;
- how we can actively include older people in the project itself, for example helping us to monitor and evaluate its progress;
- how this project can link in with other older people initiatives going on in the borough; and
- the best way of making sure older people who would benefit from this project find out about it.
Enquiries/comments to:
Bridget Whittell Performance and Planning Officer
Phone: 01942 827360
E-mail: b.whittell@wigan.gov.uk
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