MY DAY WORKSHOP
Comments
Orange LIG 11/5/2015
Amanda’s group
- No central point of information on activities
- Transport is the biggest problem for getting a job (paid job)
- Supported employment service available to people who received services from HCC and limited support provided
- Need a list of activities to know whether the right things are going on
- Need to update information on activities
- College courses available (Eastleigh)
- Feedback police in Andover
- Some positive experiences of police and reducing hate crime (Havant and Eastleigh) do well
- Job centres keeping their promises – contacting them on the phone is not appropriate for people with learning disabilities (SEE FEEDBACK BELOW)
Jo’s group
- Promises: with all the things HCC have to do, how are we checking that things happen eg transport/support to make sure activities happen
- Launchpad: should have been a small group doing different things when L/P started this was happening – now do loads of things at the same time. More community presence. Transport being provided by providers and not always encouraged to use public transport.
- Person centred-ness: seems to happen on a group basis rather than an individual basis – seems that they are not enough people to facilitate the group
- People living alone on supported living especially people who only have one hour or two per week may become more isolated due to lack of transport
- People with more complex needs need to have more support to self advocate and create their PCP unless there is an issue
EHCP’s – will bring together education, health and social care plans. In transition team our experience is that there is more contact with children services and education. Plans will replace educational statements and could be in place up to the age of 25 years if there is evidence.
- How much training /education police receive in working with people with ld. Police awareness have been really positive but they are just one offs and staff can change too.
- PSCO’s drop in and spend informal time/coffee with the local groups
- Do people use Safer Places? Are they any statistics? Was monitored for the first 6 months during this time a really good example was used.
- Should we have regular police presence at LIG? Is there an LD lead?
- Re: maximise the job centre – people who have used it find it confusing with taking about their benefits. (SEE FEEDBACK BELOW)
- In DWP – it would be good to have someone who was trained in working with people with disabilities (SEE FEEDBACK BELOW)
Green LIG
Service user group
- No promises on education
- College courses part time (drama, life skills, child care, art, cooking, IT)
- Transport issues – people take the bus/walk/taxi/bike
- Good experience – made friends – learn skills
- Courses need to be relevant due and used in daily life
- Learn develop skills that will help with work and life
- Bus passes/travel training
- Supported employment
- Experience from café or shop
- Great experience from work experience (good and bad)
- Gained transferable skills eg cooking
- Respite can offer skills for independence
- Get paid work or given the opportunity to volunteer
- Volunteering – hardwork but a good experience
- Used supported employment
- Supported volunteering (reception cage, paid to do day ops)
- Work experience – good experience
- Some had support others not to volunteer/work experience
- Paid work
- Clarify benefits and hours – what you can and cannot do
- All wanted a paid role
- What needs to happen to develop pathways?
Transport – depends on area
Choices of employment
- Talk to employers
Carers group
- Feeling that local colleges used to provide good service before but does not do anymore. All league tables. Alton used to be good but not so good now.
- Southdown still provides some courses but no grade/exam.
- Some people with ld used to go to college and can’t anymore because there is no course
- Funding over 25 is none existent
- Landscape is different/
- Piece of work for LIG: what are colleges doing/not doing? post code lottery
- Learn and develop skills
- Recognise that you can go on a course and you need to revisit it constantly and can’t assume they can do it.
- Support employment: support for 6 weeks only. Likely failure. On going support is needed.
- Think local – avoid big organisations
- Equal ops
- Personal plan/personal budgets are great – meaningful day
- Transport is an issue in some parts
Purple LIG
Fareham & Gosport group (Choices advocacy)
Choices did some work last Sat at the Drop In on “My Day” and the result was transport is a problem, house cars being taken away with the changes to their support companies etc, and not enough staff to cover hindered a large percentage of people going out when they actually want to. (Flo has requested Bernadette to give some feedback with times/dates/providers’ name; this can then be passed on to local team). Sandrine Charrier also said that providers need to work together and it is a contractual agreement (18.5.2015)
Education and getting paid work is difficult as most of the group are mature people who have been thro' this system , some do work in charity shops but this is voluntary, only one person works and is paid ...... we shall do some more work at the June drop In and I have asked Laura to come along from supported employment.
Feed Back from Hear Us Group on My Day (Winchester)
What is good about my Day
Like College
Direct payments – more choice- means I can get right support to access activities – but have help to manage this
River park Leisure Centre – because it is important for your figure- friendly staff and understand (local organisation have been doing disability awareness training for last 8 years.)
Trampolining ( River park)
I like choice it is good – having a variety of activities
Coking Course – Carroll Youth Centre
Tap Dance – good fun, exercise meet new people
Winchester GOLD courses and workshops, helps you and gives good advice
Space to talk about things, find out what is happening
Things to look forward to – sense of purpose, not stuck indoors – balanced regular routine
Socialising is important – meeting new people and seeing friends
Work – seeing colleagues getting things done, good to get paid
Blue Apple – drama, dance, learn new skills, challenges you, you meet new friends, nice to have different circles of friends
Being able to achieve, very important, whether cooking, sports or work
What is not so good about my Day
College times (ACE) difficult timing for travel and makes other commitments hard to keep – not flexible enough
Too much going on – mainly Blue Apple, not enough time to ourselves, can get too much (from core group doing touring production (9 members)
Getting paid work – very difficult – need more support
Buses – not very good at dealing with complaints
No3 stopping too abruptly
Drivers not always very helpful
Do not give you enough time to sit down
Job Centre – had to wait 15 minutes
Supported by “supported employment adviser”, but some people do not get an appointment just a phone call
No 16 “Wheelers” cannot use bus pass – now sorted
Having to miss activities or leave early because of support.
Need right support
Now support provider has changed for one person, two friends who live very near each other, now have to get separate taxi to evening activities, that they both used to share taxi and support – cost implication now double and may have to miss a social activity as they cannot afford the individual cost (£20 each, rather than £10 each)
Flo to check if passenger transport have a check list/procedure for people to complaint to bus companies.
Have all the buses got the sage journey card?
Colleges are not running the right course. How are adult services and health making sure people have got the right course?
Highbury used to be on a very good college for special needs.
What are AS and health doing to talk to colleges to do things?
Janet would like a website based information from 0 to death like Parents Voice but for everything.
Staying up campaign: some staff leave for their shifts so people end up leaving early.
Work: getting paid work is difficult, a 15 minute wait at Job centre is not reasonable adjustment. Phone call from Job centre is not either.
Some questionnaires for benefits are very complicated.
If not eligible for DWP, where do you go?
Health: how many people have helped to write their care plan?
Inexperienced young Agency staff the new Providers are using, resulting in Service Users not being able to go to Activities and Events. This has resulted in Service users displaying Challenging Behaviour
Increase in Safeguarding incidents since the New Framework???? Is there any feedback?
YELLOW LIG
We checked what our service users did in the day. All very busy: cricket, rugby, looking after animals, watch TV, does car boot sale, sports, walk, cinema, church, lunch, visit parents/family.
Some like to have a day off too.
Sunday might be lonely for some people who have no family but most people need some time off too.
People with complex needs: planning ahead is good so that support can be more flexible.
Transport can be an issue in the New Forest. Winter time can be hard.
Car share? Scheme see link
When college finishes, it can be hard to fill in the gap.
Blue LIG (the group checked every promise in My Day topic)
Adult services:
Community team at Vertex is good. increased link between health professionals and photos of people who are visiting sent beforehand. good practice.
Praise CLD team in Aldershot.
Communication: Adult services to tell us more what is going on. Would be good to have letters easier to understand for some people (Makaton would be good for some people). Machine can be bought via Makaton Society.
Farnborough SAG (self advocacy group): they don’t seem to know much about their care plan.
Hart & Rushmoor:
Point 2: adult services and health
Care managers need to listen more to what people want/need.
Problem is that it is not always same manager as managers are now on duty.
Personal budgets: people do not know what money is allocated for direct payment. Marcia says more action is needed.
Adult and children services:
A long way to go. Make the services more joined up.
Where is the learning happening?
How any people going into transition have a joined plan? yr 10 and 11 promises. What about year 8 and 9? Timetable needed. How far are we now?
Stuart said that he was working on a project. There are things happening in transition
Health:
Basingstoke hospital – great for one service user
Special care dentistry in Aldershot – very positive
Acute hospitals: what is the support for people with learning disabilities as there seems to be no more liaison nurses?
Dame Fagan unit – brilliant
More communication in hospitals websites please. Make it easy read too.
Links GP/hospital (Basingstoke) – generally good said Linzi
Advocacy:
Good
Would be great if consistent staff but advocacy is issue based these days.
Passenger transport:
Some problems with bus companies. Timetables not changed regularly.
Colour coded timetables are great (Reading)
Bus drivers can be rude
Stage Coach never came back with answers to questions to Speakeasy when they came for a meeting. Speakeasy to chase up.
What does Hampshire provide under Passenger transport?
Police:
App on mobile phone not very useful to people with learning disability
Police pop in to groups is very appropriate
Safer Place scheme – where are we at? (Flo has emailed Jess Hutchinson)
What is the police doing for training police officers? (all relating to LD)
You can register under “101” – flag on the system
Autism ambassadors
L. was bullied and the police was helpful.
Department for Work and Pensions
Disappointed that emails were not answered in the past.
Flo’s notes (message passed on to parent/carer): our current contact is
FEEDBACK
Children Services
Hampshire Adult and Children’s Services, along with our partners have engaged in a programme “My Life, My Way” focusing on transition for all children and young people with disabilities. We are making a commitment to personalisation, including independent support planning and personal budgets.
This programme will roll out over the next two years so every young person currently supported by the Children with Disability Teams, over the age of 14 will be able to benefit from the programme, from personalised planning and an individual support plan.
Kieran Lyons
County Integrated Disability Services Manager
Children & Families Branch , Hampshire Children's Services
17.6.2015
Passenger Transport
The link below is to the First Group’s Safe Journey Card and through this page there are links though to Safe Journey Card and Better Journey Cards which you may find useful.
I am not aware of any checklist about how to complain to bus companies but I am aware that on all large bus operators websites there are links through to their Customer Services departments or a telephone number on who to ring.
The above link is to First Groups Customer Promise website where details of making a complaint is detailed accordingly.
The other larger operators for Hampshire are Stagecoach (which unfortunately I cannot get onto their website) and Go South Coast (Morebus) link below
Obviously a lot of Hampshire residents will contact Hantsdirect believing that all bus services are run by the council, but in fact we are responsible for very few services now and if we were contacted we would just ring up the relevant bus companies and detail what was the problem etc. In some cases we write back to residents who have made complaints by letter whether they are supported bus ervices or commercial.
It may be that other departments in HCC will have a procedure written down regarding transport and problems associated with it but unfortunately it is something that I am not aware of. If you do discover anything I would be extremely grateful if you would let me know.
Sue Knight -
I would also suggest that any passengers wishing to make a complaint about a particular service try and note down as much information as possible (I’m aware this is not always possible) such as time, date, service number, operator, which bus stop they were waiting at etc as this allows the operator to deal with the complaint and helps to narrow down whether this is a training issue, a capacity issue, a route issue etc.
Rachel Webb -
Taxi/car share scheme:
This is what Passenger transport do:
Hampshire Police is an agency thatunderstands that individuals have different needs and skills and works hard to ensure outcomes are fair and proportionate. I have read through our promises and am happy to endorse these.
Unfortunately we have recently gone through a restructure which means we can’t always attend meetings that we would like to. I am presently covering for Darren Rawklingsand will be unable to attend.I do hope that the day is productive and successful.
Linda Howard - A/DCI 22.5.2015
Maria Middleton for Department for Work and Pensions
May 2015
We will continue to have a strong focus on helping and supporting customers gain employment. For those customers who can not work at this point in their lives then there will be help offered (to claim benefits/ access appropriate provision/support).
We do recognise that each individual’s pattern of strengths and issues will be different. Also we maybe dealing with people with “hidden disabilities” which could include autistic spectrum disorders, acquire brain injuries and mental health issues etc.
We do offer the facility of face to face appointments for vulnerable people. Each person’s local Jobcentre should have that process clearly defined.
To assist with any difficulties I also put in place last year a Social Justice Single Point of Contact (SJ SPOC) in each of our 31 Jobcentres (including a deputy in each). The aim of this role is a “go to” person should anyone be experiencing prolonged issues surrounding their search for work. If it is a benefit query we also have an established escalation route with a dedicated phone line to resolve queries if the standard process has been followed but not resolved the outstanding issue.
We do have a dedicated team of Health and Disability advisors in this district – ie people with health conditions and disabilities may need support in order for them to gain employment.
I have to stress the level of support needed would be assessed based on an individual’s need so as much information as we can have from either the person or a support worker would help us.
Last year we also put in place two dedicated Specialist Health and Disability Partnership Managers as part of our Personalisation Programme in Greater Wessex.
Vicki Harrison () will now be leading on this work and I wonder if together there needs to be further work to explore some of the detail and basis for the comments you have received?
Again it would help to know does this relate to one location? Is it pretty widespread? Have people always been offered an alternative ie a face to face interview?