Transcript Hampshire Children’s Services Personalisation and Personal

Hampshire Children’s Services
Personalisation and Personal
Budgets Pilot
A Parent and Carer Guide
Contents
What are the changes about?
Why is Hampshire Children’s Services involved?
What is a Personal Budget?
How could this work for our family?
Why should we get involved in the pilot?
How will the pilot work?
Who can help us with the plan?
How will we know if the plan is working?
What else do we need to know?
What are the changes about?
In March 2011 the Government published a ‘Green Paper’ about children and young people with Special
Educational Needs and Disability (SEND). The green paper put forward proposals and suggestions about
improving the way children, young people and their families are supported to make important choices
about their lives. In 2012 the Government published ‘Next Steps’ and also draft legislation which
explained how the law is likely to be changed for children& young people with SEND and their families.
These are some of the reasons why the Government decided to think about the changes for Children
with Special Educational Needs and Disability in the ‘Green Paper’.
Families said that there were too many different assessments for children and young people with
Special Educational Needs and Disability.
Families told the Government that they had to tell services about their ‘family story’ far too many times.
Young people with Special Educational Needs and Disability did not have paid jobs and often had poor
health and housing plans.
Families and people working with them all wanted to
improve the lives of young people with Special Educational
Needs and Disability (SEND).
Why is Hampshire Children’s Services Involved?
Pathfinders are the first areas in the country to try out some of the Governments new ideas. Hampshire is
part of one of these pathfinders made up of local authorities and related health trusts.
This pathfinder group is called the South East 7. The South East 7 group are: Medway, Kent, Surrey, West
Sussex, East Sussex, Brighton and Hove and Hampshire.
One of the new ways of working with children, young people with disabilities and their families, is by
offering them a personal budget.
The five key areas of focus within Hampshire are:
A new assessment and Single Plan approach, including the role of a key worker.
Age and employment - transition issues for young people and their hopes and aspirations for employment.
Establishing Personal Budgets.
A 'Local Core Offer' setting out what you could expect for your child from health, social care and education.
Support to Parents and Carers, including trialling
approaches to mediation, complaints and redress.
What is a Personal Budget?
A personal budget is an amount of money that is agreed by Hampshire Children’s services. This is to help
disabled children, young people and their families choose the sort of support and services they think will help
them reach their goals.
The agreed amount of money can be either paid into the bank via a direct payment or Hampshire County Council
can pay the providers of support services directly.
Short Breaks
In Hampshire our short breaks team are working with providers in your local communities to help them
provide a range of specialist and inclusive activities for children/young people with a disability. You can
find out about these activities and how your child can get involved by phoning 01962 846399
or looking on the website at www.hampshiregateway.info
Short Breaks can be accessed by any child/young person
with a disability and do not require an assessment. You can
view the Short Breaks Service statement on the Hantsweb
site.
How could this work for our family?
Having a regular amount of money that has been agreed by Hampshire Children’s Services to help you meet your
needs, hopes and aspirations, should help you have much more choice and control about the things you choose
and the way you plan. This should really improve your life.
As long as you are reaching the outcomes agreed in your plan, you can get ‘Creative’.
The Support Plan
The support plan will bring together the important things you want to change or make happen in
order to be happy, healthy, safe, included and to learn & achieve. These would have been agreed
during the assessment.
It is important to think about what your child,
young person likes & enjoys, as well as what
they and you as a family may find difficult and
want to change.
Why should we get involved in the pilot?
If you are part of Hampshire’s personal budgets pilot, you will be helping to shape services for children
and young people with Special Educational Needs in the Future. You will also be able to tell us whether
you have experienced real change in the choices you have been able to make and control you need to
make them.
Hampshire Children’s Services will learn from our personal budgets pilot this year, what works well for
families and what we will need to change to improve things for the future. Your part in this work is
extremely important to us and we will endeavour to support you to our very best abilities.
The pathfinder gives parents an exciting opportunity to shape policy and decision making in a
way we have never seen before. It is really important for this work that we can find a range of
parents who are willing to be involved with trials such as the Personal budgets trial to
ensure that we know the new way of working will actually work in the real world,
with real families and that it will make real and positive differences to children’s lives. We are
very grateful to any parent who offers to get involved with this very important piece
of work
Hampshire Parent Carer Network
Who can help us with the plan?
During the pilot, you can choose who you want to help you to create the plan alongside an independent
facilitator. You could ask a friend who knows you well. It could also be your child or young person’s social
worker.
If the support planner is not the social worker they will have a joint visit with your planner to make sure
that everyone is clear about the goals and outcomes that need to be reached.
Get Creative
The next step is to think about what kinds of support and services could be arranged to make that
happen.
It’s good to be creative and to think about ways of reaching your goals by using support in the family,
in the community where you live, as well as specialist services.
The contact details for the short breaks team has been
given in this document.
How will the pilot work?
• Your child or young person’s social worker will ask relevant questions to build up a picture of what is going
well in their lives and what needs to change for the better. This is called an assessment.
Assessment
Resource Allocation
System
(RAS)
Universal
Services
Budget Allocation
• This is a system which helps Hampshire Children’s Services decide how much money to allocate to help you
meet your needs and outcomes. The RAS is used in the same way for all families who have a personal
budget, which means it is a fair way of agreeing funding. You will be given an opportunity to respond to the
outcome of the RAS.
• Some support and services in the family and community may not need to be paid for from a personal
budget, because they are available to everyone. It’s good for disabled children and young people to be
included in their community groups wherever they can.
• The amount of money in a personal budget will pay for the additional things that some disabled children,
young people and their families need, to be happy, healthy, included, to learn and to be safe. After the RAS
has been agreed you will be able to start putting your plan together.
Who will manage the money?
Children’s Services will need to make sure that the amount of money agreed for you is set at the right level
to help you meet your goals and outcomes.
If the personal budget money is paid into a bank account via a direct payment, it is important you keep a
record of the payments you make, for the support & services agreed in the plan.
The agreed amount of money can be either paid into the bank via a direct payment or Hampshire County
Council can pay the providers of support services directly.
Audit
Your child, or young person’s social worker will carry out a regular audit with you at a pre arranged
time.
An audit is a time set aside to look at the paperwork,
i.e. payments out and in of the bank account. Invoices & bank
statements should be kept safely for this purpose.
How will we know if the plan is right?
After three months and then every six months, there will be a review meeting to look at whether the goals
in your plan are being achieved. It is important that you think about how the plan is making a difference to
you, so that you can decide what you want to keep the same, change, or move on to. Your social worker
will arrange this meeting and will talk to you before the meeting to help you prepare.
We would like children & young people to really ‘Have a Say’, in their reviews and your social worker
will make sure you have been given the chance to be there and prepare what you would like to say. As a
young person grows up, their plan should change with them, so that new hopes, wishes and aspirations
don’t get left behind.
What if we don’t agree with the outcome of the RAS?
If you are unhappy with any changes that may be proposed or think the funding is not enough to
meet your child’s needs then an opportunity will be made for you to talk this over with your social
worker and the decision maker.
Your social worker will keep you updated throughout the assessment
and planning process so that you are aware of timescales and any
delays in decision making process.
What else do we need to know?
Please note down any questions that you may have about the pilot so that your
social worker can provide any additional information.