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Personal assistance: what happens to the arrangement when the number of users increases and new user groups are included?
- Authors:
- ASKHEIM Ole Petter, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Disability and Society, 28(3), 2013, pp.353-366.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
Using data from two representative surveys among the users of personal assistance in Norway carried out in 2002 and 2010, this paper examines developments and consequences of a strong increase of users and an extension of the target group. Users with mobility impairments still dominate, but the proportion of people with intellectual impairments, brain injuries, and sensory impairments have increased. The ‘new' users seem to be allocated fewer hours compared with those who received personal assistance at the early stages of the arrangement. Still, most users experience an increase in their welfare arrangements, as compared with the situation before they received personal assistance. The user control of the arrangement seems to be preserved, but it takes more different forms. For a higher proportion of users, one of their relatives or a guardian acts as a manager of the assistance. (Publisher abstract)
Making it personal for everyone: from block contracts towards individual service funds
- Authors:
- SCOWN Steve, SANDERSON Helen
- Publisher:
- Dimensions
- Publication year:
- 2011
- Pagination:
- 126p.
- Place of publication:
- Stockport
Dimensions is a not-for-profit organisation which supports people with learning disabilities and people with autism, including providing "traditional" care services such as residential care homes. In the context of the personalisation agenda, Dimensions considered how it could help people in traditional services take control of their funding and determine and control their own support. This book is designed to share learning about how the organisation changed its services and practice. It covers the testing of new approaches in an existing home for people with learning disabilities, financial aspects, personalisation and the person-centred approach, providing "just enough support", implementation, and impact on service users. It also reviews what the organisation learnt and top tips for other providers facing similar challenges.
Taking things personally
- Author:
- FAWCETT Edd
- Journal article citation:
- Viewpoint, November 2008, pp.16-19.
- Publisher:
- Mencap/Gateway
'Personalisation' of social care services is an key component of government policy. This article briefly looks at the development of the strategy and discusses whether it is working in practice for people with learning disabilities. Two short case studies are provided to highlight the benefits personalisation.
Ambiguity in practice? carers' roles in personalised social care in England
- Authors:
- GLENDINNING Caroline, MITCHELL Wendy, BROOKS Jenni
- Journal article citation:
- Health and Social Care in the Community, 23(1), 2015, pp.23-32.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Carers play an ambiguous role within the personalisation paradigm currently shaping adult social care practice in England. Although carers have rights to assessments and support in their own right, these rights sit uneasily alongside the practices of assessment, support planning and personal budget (PB) allocation for older and disabled people. This paper reports how 14 dyads of older and learning disabled people with cognitive and/or communication impairments and their carers viewed the roles – desired and actual – played by carers in PBs. Interviews with carers and with older and disabled people were conducted during 2012 as part of a wider study into carers' roles in assessment, support planning and managing PBs. The interviews complemented a survey of reported practice in two English regions – interviews with adult social care services senior managers and focus groups with front-line care managers. Talking Mats© were used to support interviews with some service users. Interviews were transcribed and data analysed using the Framework approach. The interviews indicated that carers played important roles in service users' assessments and support planning, but were less likely to report receiving assessments or support of their own. While carers had the potential to benefit from PBs and support arrangements for service users, this did not reflect practice that aimed to enhance choice and control for carers. The paper draws on Twigg's typology of service conceptualisations of family carers and concludes that, despite the important social rights won by carers in England, current practice continues to regard carers primarily as a resource or a co-worker, rather than a co-client. (Publisher abstract)
Personal budgets: whose money is it?
- Author:
- DUFFY Simon
- Journal article citation:
- Community Living, 25(4), Summer 2012, pp.18-19.
- Publisher:
- Hexagon Publishing
The focus of this article is direct payments, personalisation, and self-directed support for disabled people. The article argues that there were major problems with direct payments for people with learning difficulties and that self-directed support was designed to tackle these problems and create a new system for social care. It describes the work of a project called In Control from 2003 to 2009 in challenging previous practice and proposing new ways of using personal budgets, and reports that despite some improvements there are still considerable problems. The author asserts that personal budgets should belong to disabled people and their families but that there are often barriers to how they can use them, and argues that campaigning is needed to ensure further progress.
My health: health action planning and health facilitation for people with a learning disability
- Authors:
- FRIENDLY INFORMATION, (Producer)
- Publisher:
- Friendly Information
- Publication year:
- 2009
- Place of publication:
- Rotherham
This DVD asks viewers to consider their physical health, mental health and aspects of their life style that contribute in good or bad ways to both of these. It advocates regular physical health checks and the creation of a personal health action plan as part of a personalised and joined up service. It also describes the role of 'health facilitators', who can be friends, relatives or another trusted individual, to act as a broker between health services and a person with learning disabilities. These services are explicitly connected to the UK government's Valuing People plan to improve the lives of people with learning disabilities, their families and carers.
Be bold: developing the market for the small numbers of people who have very complex needs
- Author:
- CARRIER Jane
- Publisher:
- Think Local Act Personal
- Publication year:
- 2012
- Pagination:
- 28p.
- Place of publication:
- London
In the context of the Department of Health Developing Care Markets for Quality and Choice programme, this document aims to help adult social care commissioners and their health partners, providers and service users and families to work together to develop local, individualised services that increase choice and control. It is based on discussions with stakeholders including national organisations, commissioners, providers and service users and their families, and a review of existing guidance and other work on market development. It focuses in particular on people with learning disability but is intended to be applicable to any groups of people with particularly complex needs. It discusses what market facilitation and development means and the barriers to development of local services. It proposes potential solutions, covering leadership and vision, personalisation and person-centred planning, planned approaches to commissioning based on good intelligence, provider flexibility and responsiveness, partnerships, understanding the whole system, and the right people. It includes examples of interesting practice, signposts to tools and resources, and a checklist for commissioners and providers to help local areas to assess where they are and highlight areas where they need to act.
Delivering personal budgets for adult social care: reflections from Essex
- Author:
- OFFICE FOR PUBLIC MANAGEMENT
- Publisher:
- Office for Public Management
- Publication year:
- 2010
- Pagination:
- 9p.
- Place of publication:
- London
Essex County Council (ECC) has commissioned a three year study to investigate the impact of personal budgets taken as cash payments by older and disabled people and their families. This paper reflects on some of the issues raised through face-to-face interviews, conducted between November 2009 and January 2010, with 46 older and/or disabled people who were receiving cash payments and/or interviews with their relatives. In addition four interviews were conducted with older service users whose personal budgets were being managed by the council. The majority had only been receiving cash payments for a couple of months at the time of interview. Generally service users reported positive outcomes. The predictors of take-up of self-managed budgets appeared to be the confidence of service users, based on their own sense of rights, their skills and support available from close relatives and wider social networks. For older service users and those with learning disabilities family members often played a central role in making the initial decision about whether to opt for cash payments. Findings suggested that frontline staff may be making implicit assumptions about which service users are capable of managing cash payments which may influence what choices, if any, are offered. A lack of clarity was found about what is meant by ‘choice and control’ leading to open interpretation by individual frontline staff. The importance of ensuring frontline staff are clear about choice and control and confident in explaining the principles underpinning self-directed support is stressed.
Selling individual budgets, choice and control: local and global influences on UK social care policy for people with learning difficulties
- Authors:
- BOXALL Kathy, DOWSON Steve, BERESFORD Peter
- Journal article citation:
- Policy and Politics, 37(4), October 2009, pp.499-515.
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
The authors of this article examine the influence of a range of national and international actors and networks on UK learning disability policy over the last 30 years, with particular focus on the policy shift towards individualised support and personalisation. Policy changes and developments within the UK are considered in the context of similar developments internationally and the extent to which personalisation can be sustained in the face of the scale and economic rationality of global markets is questioned. The article covers moves from institution to community, the Valuing People white paper and Valuing People Now consultation document and person-centred planning, direct payments and individual budgets, the personalisation of social care, people with learning difficulties and the disabled people's movement, the origins of direct payments policy in North America, marketing individual budgets, and key actors and agendas in the UK. The authors conclude that robust systems of accountability need to be developed that offer protection for users of individual budgets, including moving funding and service brokerage elements from local councils to local organisations, funding service user organisations to offer support and advocacy to users, and allocating funding to organisations of service users to enable them to develop links with service user groups beyond the UK.