1. Age UK Lewisham and southwark
Age Concern Southwark was established in 1976 and merged with Age Concern Lewisham in 2007. In March 2012 the charity changed its working name to Age UK Lewisham and Southwark. Combined we are a registered, independent and trusted local charity with over 35 years experience working with older people in the two boroughs.
Our ethos is to empower older people to make choices and take control of their lives and support, with our overall aim being to improving life for older people, especially those who are vulnerable.
Through service delivery, our specific aims are to:
1. Improve older people’s health and emotional wellbeing
2. Enable older people to make a positive contribution
3. Reduce isolation
4. Ensure older people can exercise choice and control
5. Ensure freedom from discrimination or harassment
6. Maximise economic wellbeing
7. Ensure personal dignity and respect
8. Make best use of resources available and achieve best value
We specifically deliver services to support older people who are socially and economically deprived, with the majority of older people using our services having experienced poverty for a significant proportion of their life. We aim to make an impact on the poverty we witness amongst older people in Lewisham and Southwark. The majority of older people we work with are struggling on low pensions. For many, their sons and daughters have moved out of the boroughs or out of London altogether, leaving them isolated and lonely. The indigenous white older population we work with were part of strong communities, working in industries and the docks that have since disappeared. The Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) older population we work with have had a different life experience of dislocation and settling into a strange and often hostile country. For both groups however, the end result has been an old age that involves getting by on very small incomes and often without family nearby.
In both boroughs the older people have seen the decline of their communities and a resulting increase in street crime, with older people feeling insecure and often scared on the streets. Older people from all communities are experiencing a loss of power and the ability to be heard.
To mitigate this we work to support and empower older people from both groups to have their voices heard. Through the delivery of high quality services we aim to negate the financial, emotional and physical challenges that can arise in later life. We acknowledge that our role is to ensure that older people who are vulnerable and in poverty receive services, some of which we will provide, but also ensure to carry out work that influences the delivery of quality older people services across Lewisham and Southwark. To reflect this change in strategic direction we are in the planning process of re-writing our business plan, which will take place at our Trustee meeting in April 2012.
We are passionate about delivering services that match our ethos and currently provide a wide variety of services ranging from complex care services to smaller projects, to enhance independence and wellbeing:
· Day Care, for mentally and physically vulnerable older people
· Healthy Living Initiatives, providing open access activities and social opportunities to re-able and empower
· Help at Home, to enable older people to remain independent within their home
· Information and Advice, maximising incomes and providing advice on housing, debt, continuity of care and consumer issues
· Outreach, to regain confidence, rebuild social networks and reintegrate into the community
The organisation is made up of 7 trustees, 21 full time staff, 45 part time staff and 143 volunteers (please see appendices for trustee thumbnail sketch and organisational chart).
TRACK RECORD AND IMPACT
The work that we have provided over the years has established our reputation as a charity that delivers effective preventative and support services that address poverty, isolation and disempowerment amongst older people. Our Information and Advice services continue to support older people in maximising their incomes. In both 2010/11 and 2009/10 the service supported older people to claim an additional £1.4 million in entitlements, negotiated many disrepair cases and addressed debt issues.
Our Healthy Living services has a reputation for delivering peer led and supported services and has been acknowledged by Southwark Council as the future of day services and how centres should be. It has a wide range of funders attracted by the lively atmosphere and ‘buzz’ at the centre. The centre is now led and developed by the people who use the service and has a Committee of 10 older people who meet monthly to discuss service development (and volunteers at the centre are dominantly older people). Funded by the Big Lottery these 10 committee members have successfully completed a series of sessions to develop their skills and confidence to play an active part in the decision making and delivery of activities at the centre. This included a series of sessions on finance, charity law, charity operation and fundraising, and developing their peer support skills. Since completion we have seen older people using the service contribute to fundraising applications, lead on activities, share skills and be supportive to their peers. From this short project we have seen our members gain a great sense of ownership and self-worth.
We have a track record with these services of reaching older people from disenfranchised communities including older people with learning difficulties and from BAME communities. We also succeed in reaching older men in the community who are known for being difficult to reach. They now represent 45% of older people using the Healthy Living services. These services continue to receive feedback from older people self reporting improvement in their wellbeing.
Mary, a service user of our Healthy Living Centre (aka Yalding Centre) said,
“My overall health and wellbeing has improved dramatically. I have several medical conditions for which I’m under several consultants at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospital. They have all commented at my improvements and have said this is probably due to the activities and social get-togethers at the Yalding Centre”.
Partnership work across all services continues to grow. Partnerships include work with Time and Talents, Dying Matters and The Challenge, and we maintain strong partnerships with Lewisham and Southwark Local Authorities and sit on the Older People’s Partnership Board in both boroughs. Over the last year we have worked with Helen Sanderson Associates, a leading organisation in person centred practice and thought, to enhance our person centred service delivery and practice. As a result we have seen our projects increasingly become user-led and reach more members of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities. We know that it is vital for us to work to empower older people from BAME communities, recognising that their history of discrimination has often resulted in them feeling devalued and disconnected from the local and wider community.
Our Access for BAME Elders project launched in January 2011 and to date supports 60 older people from BAME communities and has trained 67 volunteers in person centred tools, of which 54 are from BAME backgrounds and/or carers. The project has successfully developed a broad range of partnerships including Southwark Muslim Women’s Association, Black Elders Group Southwark, South London and Maudsley Hospital, Bengali Women's Group, Mindcare and Alzheimer’s Society.
Amongst our excellent achievements and partnership networks, we deliver an innovative and successful Lay Inspectors Scheme for residential care in Southwark, which has been running since 2007. The scheme has grown internally and externally; with Lay Inspectors growing in confidence, skills and knowledge and impacting the on the delivery of care and standards in residential homes in the community.
When the project first began the original contract referred to the volunteers as Lay Visitors and the Council was very much the lead partner, arranging visits to the residential homes which were always carried out in tandem with a council Contract Monitoring Officer. Reports created by the Lay Visitors were re-written before being presented to the Council and feedback was often not received. However, over time the Lay Visitors scheme has evolved as its professionalism and effectiveness at creating change has been acknowledged. The scheme was later renamed the Lay Inspectors Scheme in recognition of the role that was being carried out. The Lay Inspectors have become a powerful group of older people in Southwark who have a genuine passion for older people’s wellbeing, sharing our aim of supporting older people to have their voice heard.
The Lay Inspectors forum takes place monthly and the team have developed a high level of confidence which has been supported by the intensive training provided. As a result, the Lay Inspectors approached Southwark Council and requested that the format of the scheme be changed to enable them to set their own agenda and conduct inspections unaccompanied and unannounced. Reports written by the Lay Inspectors are now brought to the direct attention of Contract Monitors, identifying issues they have often overlooked. Too often there are elements that Contract Monitors choose to accept as inevitable such as urine smells, which Lay Inspectors have not accepted, largely due to the fact that they are older people themselves and have had first-hand experience in care. They are able to engage with older people who talk more freely with them, tend to ask more questions and monitor differently and much more closely i.e. shaking out curtains for dust motes.
The Lay Inspectors Scheme for residential care has led to marked improvements throughout Southwark. Residential care homes now ensure that their premises are cleaner, well maintained and without obtrusive smells. This has made a huge impact on the quality of life of residents. Through the Lay Inspectors Scheme for residential care, we have seen the further following outcomes:
· Incontinence smells are no longer present
· Less people are dining alone in their rooms
· Personal assessments in regards to activities that cater for people with dementia now take place
· Residents are now offered positive choice of whether consultations with their GPs are to be confidential or whether they would like their carer to be present
· Regular foot care visits from private chiropodists take place for people with diabetes
· Audits of residents’ TV’s are taking place to ensure they are ready for the digital switchover
· Laundry by commercial washing machines results in clothes being labelled (as everyone’s clothes are washed together) which is institutionalisation, so it is now in progress that wash bags are used to separate clothes
· As part of The Golden Standard for End of Life Care, it is currently being addressed that residents should have the choice to die at home, rather than in hospital
Please see appendix for insight into the types of issues that have been uncovered by the Lay Inspectors Scheme for residential care.
Our Lay Inspectors Scheme for residential care has become so valuable to Southwark that the Lay Inspectors now sit on the People’s Partnership Board and work closely with the council to maintain and improve good standards.
We have developed well established partnership networks in the wider community, statutory and voluntary sectors, sharing findings and good practice amongst these groups and forums:
Age UK London Older People’s Partnership Board
Community Action Southwark Southwark Alzheimer’s Society
London Southbank University Southwark and Lewisham Pensioner Forums
Older Person’s Focus Group Voluntary Action Lewisham
Through ongoing dialogue and coproduction of services with older people, we are able to deliver services that are relevant and useful to older people. Age UK Lewisham and Southwark’s Board of Trustees is majority led by older people, representing 80% of the total. The Trustees are active in setting the strategic direction of the organisation.
All staff and volunteers are consistently trained, supervised and supported to deliver safe and effective services and we have a very high volunteer retention rate, with several volunteers being with us for 7 years. Chief Executive, Jacky Bourke-White has over 15 years of project and service management experience in the sector and a Post Graduate Diploma in Social Care Management.
All of our services have a Members Forum/Committee that meet regularly to discuss and play an active part in service delivery and development.
2. THE NEED FOR THE CARE WATCH PROJECT
The Government’s Vision for Adult Social Care emphasised keeping people in their homes for as long as possible (DH, 2010). Increasingly this will be through giving people a personal budget, with the freedom to purchase domiciliary care (or an alternative service) from a wide range of providers. There is great optimism about how this will transform local care markets, bringing in new and innovative providers, and transferring power to the service user as the budget holder (DH, 2008). However experience from the self-funding sector suggests that cash buyers do not necessarily receive a care service that is fit for purpose; fifteen minute care visits and low levels of staff training remain the norm. Early indicators are that personal budgets will not greatly change home care provision without changes to local authority commissioning practices (Baxter et al, 2011). In particularly, there is uncertainty about how personalisation will intersect with the pressures to achieve substantial reductions in social care budgets. There is a danger that the transformative potential of personalisation will be lost as public funding evaporates. Social workers have warned that the cuts are ‘ravaging’ personalisation, as eligibility criteria are tightened and the amount allocated in personal budgets is reduced (Dunning, 2011).