Changes to Direct Payments planned

One of the first pieces of work to redesign services and integrate children and adults will focus on Direct Payments and Individual Service Funds. Initial scoping has identified opportunities to make improvements to how the system will work, benefiting both the service and those receiving payments.Further work is now planned to explore what a People Direct Payment process should look like. This will involve the following people:

• Derek Houston (Senior Manager Integration)
• Di Routledge (Area Service Manager – Inclusion, with DP lead)
• Helen Beach (Children’s Business Support Team Leader)
• Nicola Tweddle (Principal Finance Officer)
• Gill Snodden, (Business Resource Manager, Adults)
• Denise Coulthard (Brokerage Manager, Adults)
• Pam McCall (Brokerage Supervisor North)
• Shaun Smith (Business Systems and Information Manager)
• Luisa Jefferson (Business Services Systems Manager)
• Jess Ta’ati (Commissioning)
• Karen Bell (Service Manager Adults North)

The first meeting will take place this month and ongoing communication will be provided via members of this group.

Fiona Musgrave, AD Integration and Partnerships, is the Senior Responsible Officer (SRO) and is supported by Derek Houston (Senior Manager Integration) and Lyn Marriott (Business Manager). 

+ FOR MORE INFO LYN.MARRIOTT@CUMBRIA.GOV.UK

Have your say on new children, young people and families wellbeing model

The way the council delivers the 0-19 Healthy Child Programme and Early Help services in Cumbria is changing and your feedback is needed.

New proposals are based around Family Hubs which would deliver the services and interventions needed to ensure that children, young people and their families have the right support at the right time.

As well as being able to review and respond to the proposals online, there are also six drop-in events planned across the county. Consultation closes on 20 February.

+ FULL CONSULTATION DETAILS

Turkey roasts and mental health assessments

For many colleagues in People the Christmas "break" involved a significant amount of work to ensure essential services were maintained. This was certainly the case for the Urgent Care Team. The team provided 234hrs of 24/7 cover including: undertaking 28 assessments under the Mental Health Act; applying for warrants with out of hours magistrates and working closely with the police; complex assessments for respite care of elderly people and also people with learning disabilities; safeguarding investigations with police and health professionals as well as reviewing and agreeing packages of home care. The team were also put on the spot with a call from someone who wanted advice on how long to cook their turkey! 

Thank you to all colleagues who were busy over the holiday period supporting the people who need our help.

Free healthy eating advice, recipes and resources for families and schools

The council is supporting Public Health England’s latest Change4Life campaign in asking parents to 'make a swap when you next shop' to help reduce their children’s sugar intake from some everyday food and drinks.

Startling new figures show that children have already exceeded the maximum recommended sugar intake for an 18 year old by the time they reach their tenth birthday. The campaign will help by showing families how easy it can be to cut back on sugar by making a few simple swaps to their everyday food and drinks. There’s prizes to be won too!

+ SEE HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED

Can you help the #MovingCan campaign?

During January Active Cumbria are sharing daily posts on 31 benefits of physical activity and are searching for stories of people using physical activity to help alleviate symptoms of a medical condition.

We’d love for you to support the campaign by sharing the daily posts that appear on Active Cumbria’s  Facebook / Twitter and Instagram. If you do have a story get in touch!

The campaign is also supported by a webpage featuring various resources.

+ MORE INFO JOANNA.COLEMAN@CUMBRIA.GOV.UK

Playful Parenting makes a difference for adoptive families

The Adoption Support team delivered its first series of therapeutic parenting workshops recently.  It was provided to four families whose children had been placed for adoption with them for around four months.   

The main focus of the six half day sessions was to enable parents to connect with their children using the PACE approach i.e. parents being playful, accepting, curious and empathetic. It stressed the importance of play as fundamental to forming their relationship with their children.

The course was very experiential with all fully partaking in the playful elements of the workshops.

Feedback was very positive, especially parents feeling more skilled in their understanding of their children’s behaviours and how to manage these using empathetic and playful responses.

As Cumbria Adoption Service prepares to join Durham and Sunderland Services in the new Regional Adoption Agency it is hoped all new adopted families will access the above therapeutic parenting workshops to help them start their therapeutic parenting journeys.

+ MORE INFO RUTH.MCHUGH@CUMBRIA.GOV.UK

Care leavers get council work experience

Before Christmas four of our care leavers, along with a group of other young people that were NEET, completed a pilot work experience programme in Barrow – organised and managed by the Apprenticeship Team. It was a really positive experience for the care leavers, here's some of the feedback:

• "My confidence has improved and I’m happy to speak now, I wouldn't have before."
• "I enjoyed the programme, it is good, especially for people who have never worked before"
• 'it was good to have different experiences that I may not have tried before'
• "I enjoyed it so much, I didn’t think I would, it was hard work, but really good and I’d like to work there."
• "It made me feel good about myself as I was helping other people."

At the end of the programme, the participants received one to one feedback and received the offer of support to apply for apprenticeships and/or traineeships with the Council.

+ MORE INFO CARL.NXON@CUMBRIA.GOV.UK

Integrated Care Communities explained: professional of the day

Health and care services in north Cumbria are working closer together through the development of Integrated Care Communities (ICCs) to improve the health and wellbeing of local people and ensure people are treated in the best place for their needs.

Since July, ICC coordination hubs have been in place to manage referrals to community services such as nursing, therapy and adult social care. Referrals are taken by teams of trained administration staff who work closely with health, care and voluntary organisations and a lead professional of the day.

The professional of the day makes decisions about the most appropriate care for individuals. This ensures support can be arranged quickly and seamlessly between different organisations. 

+ READ THE BRIEFING

NHS long term plan published

The Long Term Plan for the NHS has been welcomed by health leaders in the North Cumbria Health and Care System.
The plan, which sets out a blueprint to make the NHS fit for the future, focuses on prevention, improving services for patients and the importance of integrating services to make them more effective and efficient.

+ READ THE SUMMARY

New wellbeing service in Eden, Keswick and Solway

16 new Living Well Coaches and Wellbeing Activators have joined Eden and Keswick and Solway Integrated Care Communities (ICCs) as part of a new service to help more people look after their health and wellbeing.

The Wellbeing Service will be based in GP practices and will work closely with the wider ICC teams to support the non-medical and psychological needs of individuals with long term health conditions, including frailty, and associated psycho-social difficulties.

+ MORE INFO

Learning Disability Annual Health Check and Action Plan Workshop

Workington and Copeland Integrated Care Communities (ICCs) are holding an event this Thursday to kick start a piece of work aimed at reducing inequalities for people with learning disabilities. Interested colleagues are invited to attend.

Learning Disability Annual Health Check & Action Plan Workshop,  Thursday 17 January 2019 @ 1.30pm – 4.30pm Bolton Street Community Centre, Workington CA14 2SL

+ MORE INFO

Cath Whalley, Assistant Director Adults visits Louise Lamont, Approved Mental Health Practitioner, Mental Health Team, Carlisle

Cath Whalley

"Just before Christmas, I was delighted to be invited to spend the morning shadowing Louise. It was great to go out with Louise as she went about her role, visiting people in the community and in hospital, and it reminded me of my social work roots.

We visited a housing project where we met a chap who had been discharged from hospital. The project was providing a safe place to stay before moving onto more independent living. It gave me a glimpse as to the challenges that Louise regularly faces in her work, engaging with individuals with alcohol dependency related issues and the impact that this has on their lives and their ability to make decisions.

Next we visited the Carleton Clinic where Louise interviewed a young woman about the proposal for a Community Treatment Order to support her discharge home. The woman was very clear that she wanted to return home for Christmas and Louise was skilful in ensuring the woman understood the implications of this decision. It was also a great opportunity to meet health staff working on the unit, and to hear first-hand about the challenges and risks that they face, often from unpredictable behaviours.

What really shone was Louise’s passion for her work, her compassion for the people she works with and her desire to support and work with people to improve their lives and opportunities, against a challenging financial backdrop. Being a social worker is a really tough job but it is an absolute privilege too, and I felt privileged that Louise had taken time out of her busy calendar to invite me into her world. The opportunity to spend a few hours at the front line was a strong reminder of what is most important."

Louise Lamont

"I was impressed that an Assistant Director had asked the workforce if she could shadow us and spend time with us. For me this indicated a shift in mind set from those higher in the hierarchy of the organisation, so I was looking forward to having the opportunity to give Cath a taste of what we do in mental health Social Work.

I found Cath to be really down to earth and genuinely interested in people, not just the service users but the staff as well. Being asked 'what gets us up in the morning' brought it home to me that I chose this profession to support others to recognise their own potential to be well; this is often lost in the day to day just doing the job. It was refreshing to see an individual in such a position take the time to really see what the issues are for the workforce, to better inform their own decision making about services.

I would encourage other members of staff to take this opportunity, not only to show the good work that is being done, but also enable our ADs to see how things really are. Only through being fully informed can changes be made that can benefit the workforce and enable them to really provide the best services to our communities."

The next round of available workshadowing dates will be announced in February.