Direct Payments Support Service Newsletter

Issue 15 - Autumn 2007

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

Darlington Direct Payments User Involvement Forum Open Meeting - for all Direct Payments users

Enterprise House, Valley Street North, Darlington DL1 1GY on Thursday 1st November 2007 from 11am until 1pm (tea and cake will be served)

To discuss Self-Directed Support with other Direct Payments users, members of the Support Service, and key staff members from Social Services (Bob Parker, Service Development and Integration Manager, Jeannette Crompton, Service Manager and Lisa Holdsworth, Service Development Officer).

Self-Directed Support means what it says: you control your own support. There is a big change going on in social care, and it is about service users being increasingly in control of the support they need.

The main things happening at the moment in Self-Directed Support are:

• Direct Payments are becoming more flexible!

Direct Payments users are finding new ways to use their Direct Payments to meet their needs. Direct Payments money is being spent in ways which might not have been considered possible a few years ago.

• Many more people will be using Direct Payments!

The government is telling local authorities that they need to get more people onto Direct Payments, and they need to change the way they work so that many more (or even most) people who use Social Services can get a Direct Payment. Social Services in Darlington are working in partnership with Direct Payments users and the Support Service to achieve this.

• Individual Budgets are coming! Individual Budgets build on and increase the control, choice and flexibility of Direct Payments, and bring it to more areas of social care. Darlington will be running a pilot Individual Budgets program in the near future.

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 do come: your comments, wishes, opinions and questions are important.

Volunteers needed to explain what difference Direct Payments have made to their lives, for a DVD for training Social Services staff.

If you want to get it across to people about what a difference it can make to your life if you have the control, choice and flexibility of a Direct Payment, there is nothing quite like hearing it from somebody who actually uses a Direct Payment.

We are looking for volunteers who are willing to appear on a short training video, talking about their Direct Payment and what difference it has made to their life. This will be used in training on Direct Payments for local authority staff, which is organised by Adult Social Services and the Support Service jointly. In the past, Direct Payments users have sometimes taken part in this training, and this has always made a difference - it just makes it so much more real for people when they hear it from the person who actually does it.

Even if you would not be happy to appear in the video, would you be willing to allow us to use photographs of you, or a recording of your voice? This is because we want to make a DVD to promote positive images of disabled people.

Please contact Simon at the Support Service (call in at Enterprise House, phone (01325) 360524, e-mail simon@darlingtondisability.org or write.)

Comments, compliments and complaints

In recent discussions involving Direct Payments users, the Support Service and Social Services, it came out that it would help services to improve if more comments from users could be fed back into the system. When something works out well, or when something goes badly, it would be great if people would send in a short note about it. These might be about services you have purchased, or about how the Support Service or Social Services have worked with you, or anything else. The Support Service would be happy to collect these comments, and feed them into discussions about how things are done and what changes might be made.

We will be making a “Comments Card” available soon, but please don't wait for it to be done, just tell us your comments now (in person, by phone, email, text, in writing or whatever.)

New ways of using Direct Payments

As you know, Direct Payments are about putting you in control of the services you get. They make it possible for you to meet your needs in new and creative ways: you are not restricted to a menu of traditional services. Sometimes these new ways might be not only more effective but also cheaper than a traditional service.

Here are a few examples of how people in Darlington have used their Direct Payment:

• Instead of paying a Personal Assistant to enable them to get into town, one Direct Payments user spent the money on taxis - this cost less money than employing somebody and enable them to spend more time in the community and to socialise with other people.

• Another Direct Payments user employed a professional childminder to accompany them and their child to community facilities - this enabled both the the parent and child to socialise with their peers, and also enabled the parent to take their child out into town.

• Paying for singing, dancing and acting lessons from a mainstream private sector service open to all children instead of using day services for disabled children.

• Achieving social time for a disabled parent by paying for nursery care for a child, plus wages for a personal assistant to accompany the parent to and from a college course (on which the parent would be supported by staff provided by the college.)

A change to how your contribution is collected

(If you do not have to make a contribution, this will not affect you)

If you make a contribution to the cost of your Direct Payment, you probably pay it directly into your own Direct Payments account. Up till now, this is the way it has normally been done (unless you have specifically asked the local authority to pay the full amount into your account and send you an invoice for your contribution)

From 12th November 2007, the local authority are changing the way they normally collect contributions: they will automatically pay the whole Direct Payment into your Direct Payments account, and send you a bill for your contribution (unless you specifically ask them to pay a reduced amount into your account, and for you to pay your contribution into your own account, the way contributions are usually paid now - at the end of the day it remains your choice)

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 at any point from 10am till 12noon. on Tuesday 23rd October 2007.

Peer Support Group

The Darlington Direct Payments Peer Support Group meets at Enterprise House on the 2nd Tuesday of each month, from 1 p.m. till 3 p.m.

It is a very friendly and welcoming group, and it is a chance to have a chat and a laugh with other Direct Payments users, but it also raises serious issues which are fed back to the Support Service and to Social Services. Some people who come to the meetings also sit on a committee which steers the planning and development of Direct Payments in Darlington (the “LIG” or “Local Implementation Group”)

It is always good to see new faces at the group - please come along.

Next meetings: Tuesday 14th November 2007; Tuesday 13th December 2007; Tuesday 8th January 2008

Direct Payments for more people

Direct Payments have been possible in England since 1993. There has been a right to a Direct Payment for many people since 2003.

The number of people on Direct Payments has increased massively over this period (from 16 users when the first Direct Payments Support pilot project was set up in 2000, to over 140 users as of now), but this is still only a small percentage of the number of people who are entitled to them.

The government would like to see most of the people who are entitled to a Direct Payment actually getting one (or else getting some other kind of Self-Directed Support, such as an Individual Budget). This is part of a plan to radically change what is known as “Social Care,” so that service users have more and more control over their own services.

With this in mind, the government has asked local authorities to look at how they operate their Social Services, and to make changes that will lead to more people using their right to Direct Payments. Social Services in Darlington are working in partnership with Direct Payments users and the Support Service to achieve this. The “Darlington Self-Directed Support Local implemention Group” (known as “the LIG”) has set up several small groups (made up of Direct Payments users, Support Service staff and Social Services staff) to look at:

• Training about Direct Payments for all Social Services staff.

• Making sure everyone in the area can easily learn about Direct Payments, and always offering Direct Payments as a first option.

• Good enough support for users.

• Fair, straightforward paperwork and ways of keeping track of Direct Payments money.

• How Social Services pays for services and making sure there is always funding free for people who should have a Direct Payment.

If you have any thoughts, comments, wishes, opinions, ideas etc. that you would like to feed into these discussions, please contact Simon at the Support Service (call in at Enterprise House, phone (01325) 360524, e-mail simon@darlingtondisability.org or write)

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 10.00 a.m. (earlier on payroll day) & 12.30 p.m. and between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. on weekdays (although this may not always be possible, as most of us are part-time and our work often takes us out of the office). However, voicemail is available (on the phone number above) at all times, and is checked at least twice a day from Monday to Friday.