Direct Payments Support Service Newsletter

Issue 14 - Winter/Spring 2007

Also available in large print, on tape or paper, and by email or in other formats by request

Meeting for all Direct Payments users to discuss issues around transport and Direct Payments (and any other issues people wish to raise)

This is a meeting of the Darlington Direct Payments User Involvement Forum. It has been arranged to discuss any or all of these issues that Direct Payments users in Darlington want to discuss (or other issues that people wish to raise). The Forum is intended to widen discussion and promote dialogue between those involved in Direct Payments for Social Care. As well as Direct Payments users and Support Service staff at the meeting, there will be Social Services staff with key responsibilities for Direct Payments and, we hope, someone involved with Transport.

Here are some points you may wish to consider:-

The Government, the Department of Health and the Social Care Institute for Excellence are promoting creative uses of Direct Payments, which could sometimes include people meeting their assessed needs by paying for transport (this is part of their plans for the future of Social Care).
Direct Payments users often raise questions about what transport costs can be paid for from Direct Payments money.
Darlington Social Services is reviewing how they provide transport in general: this may have an impact on Direct Payments in Darlington.

The meeting will be at Enterprise House on Wednesday 21st March 2007 from 10 a.m. until 12 noon in DAD's new meeting room at Enterprise House (where the Direct Payments Support Service has moved to). This is a new venue for the forum, and is not as big as the room at the Arts Centre which has been used for the forum in the past, so please do let us know if you will be coming, to give us an idea of numbers - contact Simon at the Support Service (contact details below).

Please come, your comments, questions, opinions and wishes are important.

Darlington Direct Payments Peer Support Group evening out - everyone is welcome

The evening is at the William Stead (a large, accessible, non-smoking venue which serves meals as well as drinks) in Crown Street in the centre of Darlington, starting from 6 p.m. (for those who want to come near to teatime for a meal) and continuing until late (for those who want to come later for a drink).

It is on the evening of Wednesday 21st March (the same day as the User Involvement Forum on transport issues and Direct Payments - see above)

Darlington Direct Payments Peer Support Group will from now on be meeting at Enterprise House

The Direct Payments Peer Support Group will now be meeting at Enterprise House (instead of at Dimensions Disability Initiative as in the past). Please get in touch with Simon at the Direct Payments Support Service if you need information about how to get there. The meeting is open to everyone who uses a Direct Payment, and is a chance to meet Direct Payment users. The meetings are friendly, sociable and informal.

Some members of the Support Group, who are also members of Dimensions Disability Initiative at West Lodge, will be sharing transport from West Lodge to Enterprise House; so if you are a Dimensions member who is thinking of coming to the Peer Support Group meeting, please contact Simon at the Direct Payments Support Service, who is coordinating the shared transport from Dimensions to Enterprise House for the first meeting at Enterprise House.

The meetings are still on the 2nd Tuesday of each month, from 1 p.m. till 3 p.m., as they always have been, so the next 3 meetings will be on:

Tuesday 13th March 2007
Tuesday 10th April 2007
Tuesday 8th May 2007

Tea & Cake at Enterprise House

Please drop-in at Enterprise House in Valley St. for coffee & biscuits with other Direct Payments users and Support Service staff between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. on Wednesday 4th April 2007.

Contact us:

Direct Payments Support Service
Darlington Association on Disability
Enterprise House
Valley Street North
Darlington
Co. Durham
DL1 1GY
Telephone: (01325) 360524

Email: tracy@darlingtondisability.org

DAD website: www.darlingtondisability.org

The Direct Payments Support Service aims to answer the telephone and answer our door between 10.00am & 12.30pm and between 1pm & 4pm on weekdays (although this may not always be possible). Voicemail is available (on the phone number above) at all times, and is checked at least twice a day from Monday to Friday.