Held at the Kingsway Centre, Scunthorpe
1. Present:
- North Lincolnshire Council (Social and Housing Services): Mike Briggs, Claire Startin, Joanne Robinson, Lynne Smith, John Brown, Maria Oades, Michelle Bourne.
- North Lincolnshire Council (Adult Education): Margaret Cole
- Chris Darlington - St Hugh’s Secondary School
- Tony Deighton - Rethink
- Sheelagh Dickson - MENCAP
- Caroline Ridgway - Disability Employment Advisor
- Carer representatives: Pauline Brown, John Hankinson, Cliff Allen.
- User member: Karen Gray, Tina White, Kim Grimbleby, Steven Martin, Rosie Smith, Katherine Clark.
For part of the meeting:
- Cllr Liz Redfern - Cabinet Member for Social Services
- Val Lancaster - John Leggott College
- Martin Patrick - Connexions
Apologies:
- North Lincolnshire Council (Social and Housing Services): Keith Martin, Julie Clark, Mick Gibbs, Paul Cowling (for Mick Gibbs), Teresa Anderson, Denise Hyde, Andrew Pate.
- Tom Coburn - North Lincolnshire Council Recreation Officer
- Jane Johnson - Rethink
- Sarah Middleton - Independent Sector
- Jenny Couch - Connexions
- Christine Scott - North Lindsey College
- Barbara Cullen - North Lindsey College
- Sue Atkins - Disability Services Team Manager
- Tony Adamson - MENCAP
- Rama Kholi - Multi Racial Local Link
- Dali Khan - Apna Sahara
- Nicola Bailey Regional link for National Valuing People Support Team
- Karen Frankland -Independent Sector
- Hilary Beverley - North Lincolnshire Council Adult Education
2. Issues arising from the workshops and agreement on recommendations for action.
Workshop 1 – Modernisation of Day Services (facilitated by Joanne Robinson, Michelle Bourne, John Brown and Lynn Smith)
Chris Darlington pointed out that transition was not covered in the plan but acknowledged that he had failed to respond to consultation prior to the document being sent to the Valuing People Support Team.
People felt it was confusing to have a separate day service and employment plan. It was explained that this was a Valuing People requirement and not a local directive.
Ethnic and minority groups do use day services. How can we continue to offer services to meet all needs?
Consultation with all partners, especially parents, was discussed.
It was acknowledged that since we had first written the plan, a lot had already been achieved. We are attending all Valuing People Modernisation Days to keep abreast of changes.
Workshop 2 (facilitated by Tony Deighton, Karen Gray, Tina White, Kim Grimbleby, Steven Martin, Rosie Smith, Katherine Clark )
Discussion took place on the following:
Day Services
What we do
- Cooking
- Painting
- Woodwork
- Writing
- Gardening
- Reading
- Work experience
- Line dancing
- Karaoke
- Trips out
- Swimming has improved
- Yoga
- Bowling
It was felt that there was not enough staff still to carry out supporting all activities
Some care plans are being met. There are not enough person centred plans. There are not enough alternatives if one service does not meet requirement.
Are services available 5 days a week for everyone who wants them?
Not enough staff for Adult Education and they go too fast. One lady has dropped out due to this but misses something to do and misses her friends. No follow up when this happens
Can we have voluntary assistants?
It’s nice making Christmas things
Is there open access if people have different financial funds? Inequalities.
Transport has improved.
Always on time, sometimes!
Contract taxis
"Access to work" is good.
Public transport
- Need more training to get to services independently.
- More help with timetables etc.
- Carrying on after transition to build confidence
3. Decide on themes for the next Partnership Board meeting – 27 February 2004.
Themes highlighted were:
- Leisure Services
- Transport
- Housing
- Employment
- Direct Payments.
It was decided that the two themes for the next meeting would be Leisure Services and Employment. An employment champion is still to be appointed.
4. Update from the Learning Disability Partnership Board meeting - 29 September 2003
- Accuracy – Page 13 – First sentence – should read "Cliff Allen asked if we were abiding by the Health Circular 016, due to be revised on 31 March 2004".
Page 13 – 4th paragraph – Chair of the Partnership Board - should read "Mike Briggs felt that this role could be carried out by anyone from the Partnership Board providing they had the necessary skill required to chair a meeting".
- Direct Payments - recent guidance informs that all are to have access to Direct Payments regardless of learning difficulties. When service users are assessed and are in need of a service, they are now able to obtain this for themselves.John Hankinson asked what services would be available within the service under Direct Payments that were not currently available. Joanne gave an example that a day service would operate Monday to Friday but it may be that a client wanted to use some of their available money for support during an activity taking place on a Saturday. Direct Payments can also be used for leisure activities and service users can get together to fund joint activities if they so wish.
How to access Direct Payments - a Community Care Assessment would be carried out by a social worker and if required a care plan would be drawn up. The onus is on North Lincolnshire Council for people to be aware of Direct Payments.
We are currently re-tendering for a company to act as a middle man so that the client is not involved in the paperwork attached to Direct Payments.
5. Report back from the Learning Disability Service Board – 26 September 2003.
- Item 3 - Mike Briggs is to continue to chair the Service Board for the time being.
- Item 11 – Development of Approach to transition issues: Procedure to have some minor amendments. Mike Briggs to seek clarity on this and bring back to the next Partnership Board meeting. ACTION: MB
- Item 13 – Membership of the Board – Due to recent inquorate meetings, membership of the Service Board needs to be revisited. There was a discussion about extending the membership to include MENCAP, RETHINK, PCT and Finance representatives. However, people agreed that there is an effective way of representing users, carers and voluntary organisations’ views through the Partnership Board. PCT and Finance are already represented by existing Service Board members.
6. Report back from the Learning Disability Quarterly Performance Review.
John Hankinson thought that it had been an excellent open meeting and that it was nice to see policies reflected in individual issues. Cliff Allen had found it extremely useful to attend and said that he would prefer the presentations to be in larger print at future meetings.
The next Learning Disability QPR will take place on 6 February 2004.
7. Report back from the Speak-Up meeting.
Tony Deighton reported that, in future, Speak Up Group meetings will be held in the Church of Reconciliation, Scotter House.
The new mental health Incapacity Bill was discussed and a letter has been sent to Elliot Morley, MP.
8. Report from the sub groups co-ordinator.
Concern was expressed that meetings are often poorly attended. Joanne Robinson is meeting with the Provider Forum on 15 December 2003 and she will put "Commitment to attend Sub Groups" to this forum and will put pressure on the independent sector. MB will follow up the Children’s service. ACTION: JR/MB
It was acknowledged that there is a consistent good attendance from the service users.
The next Person Centred Planning sub group is being held at 10am, 25 November 2003 at The Hollies.
"Growing old with a learning disability" – a workshop will take place to look at issues and will be attended by both service areas. This will be in the form of a training day. This part of the strategy is moving forward.
- Course for family members – Joanne Robinson requested that family carers volunteer to attend this course at York. Please let Joanne know who is attending.
- The Valuing People Support Team have invited representatives from the area. Four representatives are needed in total, one of them being a family carer representative from this Partnership Board. Carers to let Joanne Robinson have a nomination. ACTION: Carers
- Housing Sub Group – Claire Startin is now the permanent housing representative on this Partnership Board. A meeting of the Housing Sub Group is planned for December to look at the shortfalls in the housing strategy.
9. Report back from Carers representatives.
- Yorkshire and Humber Regional meeting held in York on 16 October 2003 – Respite was a big issue and it was pointed out that there was not enough choice available and that carers were not being listened to.
- From the Yorkshire and Humber forum, Cliff Allen reported that Bradford has only just started introducing Person Centred Planning and have hired this out to an external contractor (MENCAP).
- The carers had attended a Regional Meeting and there had been a good response from recent communication of the family carers.
- Day services – family carers felt quite happy.
- The issue of respite was discussed and will be further discussed next week.
- Carers will try and get family carers to attend to give their "wish list". This will say how family carers feel respite ought to be structured in the future.
- Family carers are looking for further funding for admin support. Through the Brigg Resource Centre they will pass information to the Board to help plan for the future.
- At a recent District Forum meeting someone had said that "respite" is now called "short breaks". This preference is to be put to family carers. ACTION: John Hankinson
Mental Health Sub Group – has been established. This group met on 18 November 2003 and was chaired by Angela Waddingham, PCT. Some of the points arising from this group were as follows:
A comprehensive, seamless service is required, spanning children to adults. It needs to be proactive and responsive and not to be crisis lead. The service needs to oversee psychotropic medication. Research re Valuing People White paper shows outcomes are poor. PCT are in talks with other areas eg Bradford and private companies. Shared guidelines, thereby promoting continuity and consistent service. In response to being asked what the carers want, they explained that they wanted to devise a model of service. This model, being processed by carers, is to be fed back to Angela Waddingham and further discussion will take place at the next meeting.
Heather Fairfield from the PCT will be in talks with Dr Saleh, Ward 18 on how this model fits in with Ward 18.
- An Open Meeting for family carers will be held at the Scunthorpe Screen on 27 November 2003 and the subject will be "respite".
Joanne Robinson explained that Maria Oades and Mike Griffiths are doing a mapping exercise. Priorities are crisis intervention, Learning Disability Epilepsy/medication, referrals to Ward 18 for mainstream services etc. Practitioners need to work out the number of cases that have not been receiving a service they require.
10. Change of name of the Challenging Behaviour Unit and Challenging Behaviour Service and staff job titles.
The overall view of the Partnership Board is that we are not happy with the words Challenging and Behaviour because it puts a label on people. We prefer Intensive Support Service and Intensive Support Unit. The Board are quite happy for the staff to be called Behaviour Support Officers and Senior Behaviour Support Officers.
Marie Oades to take back to service users/carers/ staff. Julie Clark as Head of Service to put this to Cabinet. ACTION: Julie Clark
11. Any other business
Mike Briggs feels that we need a list of what voluntary organisations are active in North Lincolnshire. Sheelagh Dickson agreed to produce this for the Partnership Board meeting being held in February 2004.
12. Dates of future Partnership Board meetings
These were agreed as: 9am to 1pm on:
- 27 February 2004
- 21 May 2004
- 27 August 2004
- 19 November 2004
All workshops will be held at the Kingsway Centre, Scunthorpe and will include a sandwich lunch at 1 pm.