REACH Wokingham

A Voice for all the Parents and Carers of Disabled Children in Wokingham

Question and Answer Session 17 March 2013

Lucy welcomed everyone and thanked them for coming. She introduced our guests Ian Stokoe and Lynne Pitt. Linda Orr had sent apologies.

1. Can we have an update on the progress regarding Personal Budgets?

Wokingham is part of ‘In Control’ a national organisation looking at Personal Budgets. Up to now the focus has been on adult services. The legislation for children is different. They are hoping to do a pilot with a small group of children over a period of 1 year with children aged over 16. They want to devise a person centred plan. They will use the experiences of the pilot to learn and improve and gradually increase the scope of personal budgets. There are no extra resources available to do this work.

Lucy asked about the new legislation and how that would affect personal budgets as one of the clauses in the bill says that personal budgets will be offered from 2014.

The new legislation does not focus a great deal on social care. Linda Orr is leading on the development of a single plan (the Education, Health and Care Plan). Pathfinder areas are still trying to work out how a lot of the new legislation will work in practice.

Sheila: will you provide a list of services parents can choose from or give more freedom of how we use a personal budget compared to direct payments.

They want CAN to distinguish more clearly between breaks and activities and determine the costs. Lynne is trying to look at what happens in adult services to aid the transfer from children’s to adult’s services. They need to ensure they protect services like Bridges whilst still giving parents some freedom.

2. Are there any changes to the structure or staffing of DCT?

Lynne sent a list last year, which all agreed was very useful. She will send an update. They want to recruit a senior social worker to replace a locum post. One part time occupational therapist has also resigned and they hope to replace her with a full time post.

We asked if we could have an equivalent who’s who list for SEN.

3. Development of WIN (Wokingham Information Network)

WIN has beenset up in the last 2 years and is managed by Wokingham Direct. They have been trying to link it with the CAN Network which has been challenging. Susie Rees is currently making sure that the CAN information is correct and then making sure it is easy to find, eg by filtering activities by age, disability etc. Organisations will be able to update their own information in future, which should hopefully mean it is more up to date.

A parent commented that the link from Wokingham Borough Council Website to WIN is currently right at the bottom of the page and so not visible. Susie is working to improve this.

Lynne suggested that if we have any problems with the website the person to contact is Sarah Barrow, the manager of Wokingham Direct.

4. Can we have an update on the local offer? How will you involve parents?

They have not got far with this so far. They are starting to link with Education and Health. One challenge is to be careful of using consistent language and make sure that all departments understand the same thing by the terminology.

Phil Cullimore (Parent Partnership) informed us that at template local offer is being developed and that pathfinder areas are still working on this.

Ian stressed that parents will be a very important part of how the local offer is presented.

Lynne asked if REACH can email her, asking for an answer to this question that she can forward to senior managers.

Judith and Julie stressed that REACH are very keen to work with everyone on the development of the local offer and would like to be involved from very early on in the process.

5. Can we have an update regarding schooling for ASD children?

The SEN review has now been completed. They had been looking at a secondary resource in Wokingham. There is now a NAS (National Autistic Society) school opening in Reading but it looks like this will not serve the groups of children that Wokingham have been looking at the provision for. Need to ask SEN for further information.

Short Breaks Survey –feedback from DCT

Lynne’s thoughts:

  • that it was great that REACH had been able to this survey. As is often the case it has raised as many questions as it has produced answers in their minds.
  • She clarified that of the 560 people registered as disabled children on the CAN network not all will be eligible for services. They currently have approximately 120 of these children on the social workers caseload and 60 on the OT caseload (there will be some overlap between these 2 groups).
  • She noted a particularly high response rate in the 9-11 year olds and wondered if this is a particularly tricky time for families.
  • She was surprised that 64% of parents don’t know where to look for information or what the short breaks statement is and felt that CAN should be signposting parents to this information.
  • A key point to get across is that you don’t need a social worker to access many of the services.
  • She noted the comments regarding transport and sibling services.
  • Finally she concluded that it was a really good survey, with lots of good information and lots to work on.

Ian’s comments:

  • A high take up and a valuable exercise.
  • Surprised by the amount of people who didn’t know much about services, even though he had expected it to be high.
  • Surprised by how few took up some of the short breaks
  • Interested by what parents considered to be a short break and the length of time a break needed to be in order to provide an effective break.
  • Assessments need to consider parent’s desire for time with partners, other children, or for themselves.
  • He wants to involve parents in making communication more effective.
  • He wants to take up the offer of working on the needs of specific groups (e.g. physically disabled children)
  • No funding changes 2013 to 2014, but he would like REACH to help consult with parents on establishing where funding would be best used for 2014 onwards.
  • He recognises that we need to make sure information is provided on groups that are not funded.
  • It would be a good idea to have an LDD parents forum along the lines of the SEN one.

Questions were asked about how the success of short breaks are assessed.

They have Service Level Agreements with all providers. The providers have to show that they have consulted with parents regarding their satisfaction. The SLAs also include details of policies and procedures which must be in place and the number of short breaks which must be provided.

A parent asked where we should go to give feedback on these services, especially negative feedback.

Lynne and Ian suggested approaching the provider in the first instance. Otherwise this could be done through REACH if a parent did not feel comfortable.

Ian suggested a REACH rep come and talk to a team meeting about some of the issues that have emerged, e.g. parents don’t know what to ask for, sometimes there is poor communication from social workers.

The meeting closed with Lucy thanking Lynne and Ian for attending and stating that the relationship. between Reach and the DCT was vastly improved and the consultation shows this.