Agenda item

Anne Marie Lubanski, Strategic Director Adult Care, Housing and Public Health

Councillor Roche, Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Health, reported that the project was now on track to meet the timetable including assessments.  This was despite a lack of capacity at times due to difficulties of filling some vacancies and needing to move staff into other work areas.  The key was the impact on people in real life and the case studies were now showing some examples.  It was hoped to hold an All Member Seminar on the lessons learnt so far and what the next steps were.

He introduced Anne Marie Lubanski, Strategic Director Adult Care, Housing and Public Health, and Jenny Anderton, Transformation Lead, who gave the following powerpoint presentation on My Front Door:-

My Front Door

-          Was the vehicle for communication and engagement with all our key stakeholders

-          Built on the Learning Disability Strategy and Adult Social Care Vision ensuring the information was accessible and relatable to individual, carers and families

-          Supported potential providers to “buy into” our Learning Disability Transformation Programme by pitching their services in real-life ways

-          Was our personalised approach to our Learning Disability Transformation Programme moving hearts and minds towards a positive future

-          Ensured person-centred planning and enabled our practitioners to engage with people in a new and different way

-          Created a narrative that changed all our thinking from a focus on decommissioning services to a focus on the real alternatives and opportunities available for individuals

-          Would have engagement activities that were co-produced with individuals and would enable further consultation on new opportunities

Workstreams

-          Assessments

-          Commissioned Solutions

-          Carers Support

-          Accommodation

-          Community Catalyst

-          Shared Lives

-          Transforming Care

-          Communications and Engagement

-          Health

The MFD Team

-          The initial staffing agreement for My Front Door Team was 10 full-time assessing staff plus 2 Workers from Oaks

-          7.8 FTE from 1^st April, 2019

-          Recruitment was underway with interviews planned

-          Team average caseload was 17.52

Employment

-          Employment Co-ordinators were facilitating a number of people to access different types of employment/job-based support

10 people were accessing voluntary opportunities (organisations included St. Vincent’s, Salvation Army, RSPB, Barnardo’s)

19 people were accessing work experience (organisation included RMBC, BA components, Costa, Pound Land, Riverside Café, Mears, Life Wise)

23 people were accessing paid work (organisation/employers included dog walking, Premier Inn, Asda, RMBC, Partech, McDonalds, Broad Horizons)

6 people were paid by BA components

A piece of work was taking place to validate figures and develop a Project Search offer with the schools and colleges

There had been a successful bid into European Social Fund which would help us to expand the employment offer

Discussion ensued with the following issues raised/clarified:-

·           Voluntary Action Rotherham (VAR) had been really helpful working with the enterprises with regard to developing business models and working with them in partnership

·           The work was ongoing about changing the ways of working

·           The contract had not changed with VAR as there was no need.  What they did within their infrastructure was appropriate in terms of the work of My Front Door

·           The project had grown in confidence and more providers were beginning to contact the authority.  People were now beginning to see from the learning disability and autism perspective that Rotherham was in a different place.  It was a positive evolving journey but would take time

·           The successful European Social Fund joint bid was part of the Employment Pathway to get more people ready for work and into jobs.  The funding was across Adults and Children so would involve working with those in transition.  A meeting was to be held with Sheffield Council in the near future to work through the detail of the funding

·           With regard to how many people were waiting for an assessment, the Transformation Lead had a plan to work through the Oaks and that plan was on schedule; everyone was allocated in terms of the assessment pathway within Oaks.  Part of the sophistication of the assessments was about confidence and in terms of when the work had started (95 people attending Oaks) now stood at 28

·           Mental capacity was a legal requirement of the local authority and had to ensure that the assessment was done correctly.  Everyone had been allocated an assessment at Oaks but would be at different stages of their journey due to their own personal complexities.  Every individual would have a different pathway and timescale

·           Shared Lives was a service that would grow.  A number of people had come forward that wanted to be Shared Lives carers and a number of people that wanted to access the Shared Lives Service.  Work sometimes took a while to get a suitable match

·           There had been no complaints from carers about the work that had taken place and work was taking place with them as part of the Person Centred Plan.  Efforts were being made to make sure carers were offered a Carers Assessment

·           There was no target for caseload numbers for the MFD Team as the client audience was very complex and some may need a longer period of time than others.  The ambition was to meet the requirements as set out in the Cabinet report and was on track to do so.  The Social Work Team would increase, however, they were meeting all their targets at the moment

·           More and more case studies were emerging.  The stories would grow but there were some teething problems.  An evaluation would be carried out of the first stage to look at the things that could have been done better and would be submitted to the Select Commission

·           Providers were interested in what was happening in Rotherham but because some of the work took time and confidence to build up capacity in the provider, the service was having to work closely with providers because they would not have a whole raft of people going to their service at the beginning.  Part of the learning was in terms of how the Services worked with the providers to be sustainable whilst the confidence grew so the transformation could continue

·           Community catalysts were a provider who had been commissioned by the Service to conduct a piece of work looking at Rotherham and those that wanted to set up businesses and work with the Service, to ensure they had the right ethos and values and to support them to make that happen.  Members were also asked to forward information on anything happening in their wards that might link in with MFD.

·           Shared Lives was part of the assessment process to look at people’s outcomes and what they wanted to achieve.  If, through the support plan Shared Lives was one of the options desired, a referral would be made.  It was offered to everyone that wanted it

·           In terms of overall quality assurance, as part of the review, some service users with learning disabilities would be asked to quality assure some of the enterprises/new services to make sure they were correct.  Also the Contract Compliance Team would pick up on any contracting issues

·           It would be difficult to have one quality assurance format that would suit every provider e.g. a day service did not fit within the regulation of CQC.  Part of the assessment process was also about checking Safeguarding and the associated risks and that was where a lot of the micro assurance would come from.  In terms of wider commissioned providers, the Contract Team would be able to provide information on their contract compliance visits

·           It was noted that additional information showing some of the learning from a wider range of case studies and details on the timescales to undertake this transformation work would be useful to inform Members and to help in managing expectations.

Resolved:-  (1)  That the presentation be noted.

(2)  That an All Member seminar be arranged on Shared Lives and a progress report submitted to the Health Select Commission.