Happy New Year to you all,
We at ASA certainly started 2013 with a BANG! – Last weeks ‘Positive Solutions In Social Care’ event, followed by this weeks launch of our new project; PACT.
This months newsletter gives a brief overview of what happened at last weeks event, along with a more detailed look at PACT.
Our Chair Keith Phillips kicked off the afternoon setting the scene with ASAs seven-year history and expansion.
Keith noted how efficiently and effectively the third sector can deliver social care services, especially with the support of the Local Authority (the LCC in our case).
Further to that, Keith detailed how ASA are fast becoming the ‘go to people’ for other Shared Lives and Third Sector entities across the UK, after being described as ‘trail blazing’ in a white paper earlier last year.
In fact ‘partnerships’ were the theme of the day. Partnerships between third sector entities, partnerships between third sector and local authority and partnerships between third sector and co-operatives or indeed, the private sector.
Onto Nick Boles MP who gave a thought-provoking speech about vulnerable individuals within the Community. He asked “What and who will make them feel that they are in control of their destiny, of what happens to them. This is what we need, choice and empowerment for those individuals”.
Nick congratulated the LCC as one of few bodies who very early on, embraced and in fact pursued the release of social services, to specialist or expert outside parties. Further congratulations were awarded to our CEO Trixie Bennett and the entire team, whose imagination and courage overcame a time of diminishing public budget stating “society would be intolerable without the third sector, especially those who deliver on a local level…they ARE the big society now”.
Nick encourages third sector Owners to develop joint ventures, using the financial backing of partners to ensure their creativity and flair is allowed to flourish.
Ursula Lidbetter Chief Executive of Lincolnshire Co-op gave us a captivating history of the Co-op and its involvement with the Community. Ursula stated “we sound like a business but are more like third sector”. The Co-op are owned by the public (some 216,000 members) and invest profits back into the Community via initiatives such as the 24 children’s breakfast clubs around the county, business mentoring schemes, paid staff volunteers and the management of public services such as Waddington Library. To celebrate their 150th birthday last year, the Co-op gave an extra £500,000 to local causes, also buying and planting a 10-acre woodland.
Care within the community is central to the Co-ops existence. It requires partnership with the public, together changing the face of care within the community.
Ursula shared with us her dream of relationships between people, rather than the carer and the cared for’.
Our Chief Exec Trixie Bennett, talked briefly about how difficult it was as a nurse and social worker, to become a businesswoman, almost instantly. Trixie accounted her success to the experts she surrounded herself with, then trustees, now ASAs Board of Directors.
Trixie attributed 4 key aspects to ASAs success;
People – Hiring the correct people and nurturing a shared direction.
Vision – Putting the client at the centre of all decision-making preserves the integrity of the vision. Trixie stated “put the client first, everything else will fall into place”.
Brand – a third sector should be operated like any other business, with a drive to make money and to be profitable. “The difference with third sector though is we don’t aim to make anybody rich, we just aim to enrich peoples lives” Trixie says.
Partnerships – at this stage Trixie introduced the room to a new project to the room, which subsequently launched on the 14th of January. This partnership, known as PACT (prevention and avoidance community team) is made up of partners Lace Housing Association, AgeUK Lincoln, ASA & the Lincolnshire Partnership Foundation Trust (LPFT).
Jane Marshall of the LPFT introduced here giving the room a more detailed account of what the PACT partnership is all about. ”People are living longer, the need and demand to care for them increases. We need to be smart and creative in catering for this, particularly in an environment with diminishing budgets”.
The current project for PACT is a response to recent news on bed blocking. The team pool their resources to firstly address the initial medical needs quickly then get the individual back home, into a state of independence. This may include travel home, putting on their heating, taking them food shopping, providing them with company and assessing the individuals future needs.
Mirroring the vision of PACT, Jane states “Our aim is to continually provide a service you would expect a member of your family to receive”.
Closing the event, Esther Rantzen spoke about her experience with community services, her thoughts on partnerships and her future plans to launch an adults support service.
Reflecting on the much publicized Jimmy Saville case, Esther asserted ‘we as a Country, do not make it easy for people to speak out’.
That taboo surrounding abuse was the inspiration for the series she created, ChildWatch, on which , Childline was launched in 1986. Esther shared with us a story from this time in her life, about a young girl once helped by Childline, who went on to help others. The moral bring that the vulnerable individual should always be in the driving seat, we as service providers should progress at their pace. A sentiment all speakers agreed with.
After 26 years and 2.7 million children helped, Esther is now working on her next project The Silver Line (due to launch September 2013). This is aimed at older adults, providing 1:1 & group telephone befriending, , addressing issues such as loneliness and abuse.
What will be a highly successful service is attributed to partnerships says Esther. To create success, Esther created a round table of those working in the field. She was amazed that many working in the same sector were sitting next to each other and hearing about each others’ services for the first time! Why hadn’t they met and collaborated combining their skills and experiences before now?
Congratulating ASA, Esther admired what she called the “patchwork of provision provided by the third sector…brilliant, innovative, niche projects, tailored absolutely to the clients’ needs…empowering clients to set the agenda”
Esther closes with a key sentiment for the day “Imagine this wasn’t a patchwork, imagine it was how we delivered social care, Country wide”?!
Click here to see a short video capturing the days events
