Adult social care eligibility criteria - innovations and developments: report

Appendix D

The Power of Partnership

Lucinda Godfrey (CEO) and Sarah (Support Worker) Dundee Carers Centre

Lucinda and Sarah talked about the 'Power of Partnership' and the role that Dundee Carers Centre plays in supporting the design, development and delivery of local carer supports. They have been supported by their HSCP, with Carers Act funding, to act as lead agency in a locality-based approach for seven years, supporting community capacity building. They knew they wouldn't meet demand by funding more of the same. They knew they needed to understand why carers are looking for support in the first place and what they want this support to achieve, then work (with carers, families, agencies, community groups) to address these reasons. They have been informed by carers, who wanted access to universal services, with emphasis on early-intervention and preventative support. They emphasised that this process is ongoing: "Continuing open, honest dialogue is essential."

Approach:

Capacity building with universal services and community groups (to offset the need for support that results from lack of understanding about the impact of caring and barriers to accessing mainstream services and everyday life opportunities). They also provide direct tailored support to carers e.g. (short breaks, education, training, advice, counselling, peer support etc.) whose family situations mean they need it.

Dundee Carers Centre received funding in 2016 to support implementation of the Carers Act. Lucinda stressed that everything featured in the presentation was the result of collaboration, sitting within the Dundee HSCP, with the partnership including multiple agencies, both statutory and third sector, together with mainstream services, carers and families. Local strategy implementation has also been very well supported by the IJB.

At the start, they consulted widely through surveys, focus groups, questionnaires on outcomes frameworks and eligibility criteria. Key messages were:

• o Keeping it simple - no bureaucracy / paperwork
• o Being able to access support without a carer support plan
• o Removing barriers to continue with universal services
• o Taking care not to create more stress

They thought hard about what they were doing, why carers were coming to them and develop and build infrastructure across the city and within communities rather than simply more services within the Carers Centre. This required a shift from a project-based approach to a locality-based service, facilitating dialogue and supporting culture change:

"We didn't want to open the floodgates in the carers centre – it couldn't be about that"

A key enabling factor was an existing appetite locally (HSCP and IJB endorsed) for investing and enabling (continued) use of universal services, early intervention and prevention (following investment from the Integrated Care Fund and Change Fund).

Requirements:

• o Relationships
• o Trust each other
• o Conversations - open honest dialogue
• o Listening and learning
• o Value each other's contributions
• o Real partnership with everyone taking on responsibilities
• o Existing appetite for early intervention / prevention and enabling use of universal services
• o Commitment to carers – demonstrated through funding
• o Strong strategic support from HSCP / IJB

Learning:

The team stepped back to look at why carers were accessing the Carers Centre. Most carers want (and spend a lot of time) not looking for support for themselves, but for the supported person. They often come because they want the barriers to life opportunities removed. The support they did seek for themselves from the Carers Centre was typically the result of their school, employer, health and social care team not understanding the impact of being a carer. It made more sense to do proactive work with these organisations to stop carers feeling disadvantaged in the first place.

The shift from project to locality-based approach has also seen a change from workers supporting particular types of carers to more generic locality workers who can work with the entire family. Young carers can care for adults and adults and grandparents care for children, parents might be sandwich caring (for both children and grandparents) – the separation can make it very difficult for families with different workers involved.

For young carers it is essential that the work progresses with other agencies and our young carer ambassadors. We collaborate with others to produce resources, information and training to support schools and localities. Not all young carers want specialist support. The majority in school don't need a young carer statement, don't need group or even 1:1 support – they might need a 'soft start' in the morning, a guidance teacher who can speak to class teachers about their homework. However, the sort of support they want - no one person can provide that - so every school has a named person from the Carers Centre and a named staff member on the team responsible for identifying and supporting young carers and every high school has a team of young carer ambassadors.

One group of parent carers were beginning to think about life outside caring and their future employability. Nine such carers have all completed a range of training and learning opportunities and have received an adult achievement award. This requires them to reflect on the learning and skills gained as a result of being an adult carer.