Liz Sayce chairs personalisation event

Tue,24 September 2013
News

Personalised Support Services for Disabled People: What can we learn?

The setting for everyone involved with care and support services is changing. While the benefits of offering disabled people choice and control over their support are wide ranging, developing the provider market to meet the demand for personalised support brings more challenges.

Helping disabled people into employment at a time of economic recession and unprecedented financial difficulties for central and local governments makes close collaboration between local authorities, Jobcentre Plus, user-led organisations and providers even more important. Yet attempts to join up funding streams have faced significant administrative and cultural barriers.

This seminar, held today, considers what we can learn from two important evaluations of disability policies: the Right to Control Trailblazers and Jobs First.

Having identified what worked, what did not and why, Ipsos MORI and King’s College London are sharing their findings with practitioners to help care and support services deliver for those who need them most. 

Speakers:

  • Liz Sayce OBE,  Chief Executive, Disability Rights UK (chair)
  • Claire Lambert,  Director, Social Research Institute, Ipsos MORI
  • Dr Martin Stevens,  Research Fellow, Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King’s College London
  • Chris Hall,  Parent and carer of an adult with learning disabilities

Big messages from the event on personalisation, from delegates and speakers, included:

  • Evidence shows disabled people have far less choice in social care than parents do about schools. This should change
  • It’s about control, having a real say, based on what you want in your life – not just a superficial choice between a and b service
  • Right to Control trailblazer areas are seeing major cultural change which must be extended
  • DPOs can offer peer support for employment – in a much more relaxed atmosphere than Job Centre Plus or big providers
  • We need support to mobilise peer support networks – eg of family members, disabled people
  • Levers to keep and build employment support include the local well-being AND growth agendas, national policy (eg forthcoming disability employment strategy), the legal ‘right’ to control, and economic case
  • Local and national politicians should think as long-term about investing in disabled people’s life chances as they do about high speed 2 or other big infra-structure developments

Liz Sayce said ‘Disabled people and our families want a real say in our support. Some areas are delivering it, others offering more cosmetic choices or little choice at all. The learning from cultural and systems change in Right to Control trailblazer areas must be built on’.

You can find out more about this event at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/kpi/events/eventrecords/supportservices.aspx. Twitter #rtcjobs1st.

For our response to the Government evaluation of the Right to Control Trailblazers go to http://disabilityrightsuk.org/news/2013/august/dr-uk-response-right-control-pilots