Be Inspired! Shirley Ayres Consulting

Mary Baker founder of DropBy

Social Networking and the over 60s may sound an unusual combination. However, the latest Nielsen research finds that overall membership of existing social network sites has grown significantly between 2009 and 2011 and that use by older people has grown more than twice as fast.

DropBy is a social website for the over 60s to keep in touch with family, friends and interest groups. DropBy is very much part of the Big Society and is an enabling force for family and community communications. In the longer term it could become a life-line for those who live alone or who feel isolated.

The website provides a safe hub for older people to communicate and interact with their families and friends even if they cannot leave the house. It is also proving to be a friendly place where carers can share their frustrations and make new friends.

Tags: DropBy, online communities, social care, social media

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Angela Catley

The providers of high quality care and support services are eager to show that what they offer is valued by customers, their families and supporters. Care and support choices are increasingly being made by people and not local authorities and we need ways of ‘badging’ or accrediting providers that takes this into account. The new Quality Mark developed by Community Catalysts could offer the answer.

Community Catalysts works with people with good ideas, offering the help they need to get their new enterprise established. This has the knock on effect of providing greater choice for people who need care and support to live their lives kind of “market shaping from the bottom up”

Evidence from our work is that lots of enterprises are not covered by local contracts or care regulation and as a result are unable to get ‘registered’ or ‘approved’ as care services were in the past. Others spend time and money jumping through the hoops necessary for registration or approval only to find these don’t have a focus on the quality issues that users and families are looking for. There are a plethora of new and emerging systems and initiatives which are attempting to address the quality issue but are not designed to work for the kind of small and/or quirky service providers that users are looking to purchase from.

The Quality Mark gives providers access to advice and information before assessing their systems and paper documents. It also recognises that all the paperwork in the world will not guarantee that the service will deliver good outcomes for customers and uses very simple feedback systems to allow people to say what they think about the service they have received. An independent Citizen Panel makes recommendations as to whether the provider should gain the quality mark awards

The system is designed to be accessible to as wide a range of providers as possible. We hope that providers and councils in other areas will be interested in using it and will be licensing its use in order to offer more comprehensive and continuing support.

We believe that people will appreciate this simple but robust approach to tackling the very real issues we face in this new (but a little confusing) personalised world of care.

About the author  Angela is the Director of Operations at Community Catalysts, an organisation that works to harness the talents of people and communities to provide high quality small scale and local support services. Angela began her career as a nurse for people with a learning disability, moving on to manage nursing, residential and day services and supported living projects.

For more information about the Quality Mark contact Angela  angela.catley@communitycatalysts.co.uk

Tags: adult social care, Community Catalysts, evaluating care services, micro providers, personalisation, Quality Mark

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It was with some trepidation that I read the Coalition’s new “Vision for Adult Social Care” this week. Would there be any surprises?
It’s great to see the new government taking up the baton of “Putting People First”. The key themes of choice, empowerment, using social capital from communities and partnership working (rather than professionals having a monopoly of wisdom) fit perfectly with “Big Society” principles. Most importantly, once you start to give people a voice – like any democratic approach – there is no turning back. Personalisation is here to stay.
I am, however, particularly pleased to see that my learning and development tool Whose Shoes? is still valid – not just valid but proclaiming loud and clear, and often in uncompromising terms, the key messages included in the new vision statement. As I read on, key messages kept leaping out at me which are totally in line with my Whose Shoes? scenarios  … “free the frontline from bureaucratic constraints”….“a proportionate approach to the management of risk”….”the system should support rather than hinder people’s goals”….“educational or employment opportunities”….“reduction of inflexible block contracts”….. “nothing about me, without me”
  Whose Shoes? was developed 18 months ago. So does this mean that nothing has changed or moved on? No, it means that change of this magnitude takes time; it must evolve through a shift in power and the creation of new ways of working. Top leaders are using imaginative ways of engaging staff and communities, using the synergy that comes from genuine involvement. Creative approaches to learning, exchanging practical solutions – concentrating on outcomes which may or may not require state-funded services.
Working in silos is no longer an option as personalisation dictates new partnerships. Partnerships start from building relationships. Relationships start from getting to know each other and building trust. Whose Shoes? is inclusive, enabling service users and carers to engage with a wide range of professionals in an extremely natural way. Empathy and innovation are key – it is only through breaking down existing barriers that the conditions will be laid to speed up the journey to personalisation – but avoid derailment.
“Training – for personalisation – is not just acquiring a tick-list  of ‘competences’, but developing understanding of how it is for this individual, walking in their shoes…..”  - Barbara Pointon, MBE, Ambassador for Alzheimer’s Society

“Whose Shoes? was the winner of the national Dragon’s Den style “Thinking outside the Box” event in Newcastle.

About the author Gill Phillips has 30 years experience in social care. She became passionate about the personalisation agenda while working for Coventry City Council as Service Manager, Performance Improvement. Wishing to pursue innovative ways of engaging people, Gill established Nutshell Communications Ltd and developed Whose Shoes?  She gives lively, challenging talks and workshops across the UK. Contact Gill through her website  www.nutshellcomms.co.uk and follow her on twitter @WhoseShoes

Whose Shoes? is featured as a “good practice” example in the Department of Health: Putting People First Communications Toolkit:
Watch the lovely Whose Shoes? videos

Tags: encouraging innovation, personalisation, social care, workforce engagement

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