Co-production or ‘sharing power as equals’ features as one of the Social Care Future movement’s five key changes. 

At its simplest, co-production means everyone working together to achieve the best outcomes. It’s an opportunity to bring together residents, voluntary groups and others involved in providing or receiving support to share their skills and experiences to help shape solutions to real-life issues.  

It can look different to different people – it could be taking part in a Lived Expert interview panel to recruit people into roles in Adult Social Care, or attending an online workshop to share your views, ideas and priorities for Carers’ support.     

Our Social Care Future newsletter helps us let you know about opportunities for you to get involved, have your say and shape the services that are available in the borough. The opportunities we share come mainly from the Adult Social Care team at the Council, but we will also highlight other projects looking to collaborate with residents on topics relevant to the Social Care Future vision. 

We also attend local groups to hear what’s important to them and talk about ways they can get more involved. If you run a group and would like someone from the local Social Care Future group to come and talk about the vision and what’s going on, email us at getinvolved@wokingham.gov.uk

Do you receive Direct Payments and think they work well, or have ideas on how they could be improved? Have you been offered Direct Payments but turned them down as you weren’t sure if they were right for you? If so, we would love to talk to you.  

We want to make Wokingham the best place for Direct Payments, because we believe they can offer people flexibility and control over the support they receive.   

Following a piece of work last year, we have already made some improvements in this area, including a new Direct Payment newsletter and an outreach advisor to offer support. However, people tell us that there are many reasons why they don’t choose to take Direct Payments. We want to understand your thoughts better so we can offer people a solution which works for them.  

The Social Care Future movement is supporting councils across the country to think about Direct Payments and what changes might be needed at a systems level. 

We are running this project using something called a Working Together for Change approach. The starting point for this is gathering information from people who have a personal experience of Direct Payments, so we make sure that what matters to people is kept at the heart of the conversation. 

We are still looking for people to share their experience in a phone call or via email.  If you would like to help us make direct payments better, please get in touch via getinvolved@wokingham.gov.uk with ‘Direct Payments’ in the title.   

We’re keen to hear your views on what helps you live in the place you call home, and what gets in your way. 

We’re hosting an open session on Monday 13 May where people will be able to come along and chat over a cup of tea or coffee and share their thoughts.  Everyone is welcome to join in.  

It may be that you are happy where you are but want more security, you need extra support to stay in your own home, are looking at supported living or considering residential care.  We would also like to hear from people or groups that support people with finding or making a place feel like home. 

The feedback you share will feed into the Adult Social Care strategy, which sets out what our priorities are over the next 5 years. 

Please reply to us at getinvolved@wokingham.gov.uk to let us know if you’d like to come, so we can share more details about the meeting location and accessibility.  

Local elections are taking place on Thursday 2 May, along with the election of the Police and Crime Commissioner for the Thames Valley.  

All 54 borough council seats are up for election and, wherever you live in the borough, you will have the opportunity to vote and help choose your local councillors. 

Poll cards have been sent to everyone registered to vote in these elections. If you’ve not received a poll card by now, you can check if you are registered to vote by contacting our electoral services team.  

If you are not registered, you can do this online at: www.gov.uk/register-to-vote. It only takes five minutes and you will need to provide your date of birth and national insurance number, but you can still register even if you don’t have one. You must register to vote by Tuesday 16 April. 

If you are voting in person, make sure to check your poll card carefully to see where you need to go to vote as some polling stations have changed since previous elections.  

Key dates to be aware of