Agenda item

To receive the report of the Chief Officer Access and Care Delivery, Adult Social Care, to update the Community Committee on the progress with Strengths Based Social Care across the city, to draw attention to local features of the new approach to service delivery.

(Report attached)

The report of the Chief Officer Access & Care Delivery, Adult Social Care provided the Community Committee with an update on the progress with Strengths Based Social Care across the city and focused on local features of this new approach to service delivery.

Members were shown a short film and papers were tabled at the meeting.

In attendance at the meeting were:

·  Shona McFarlane, Deputy Director, Social Work and Adult Social Care Service

·  Kim Adams, Program Manager, Service Transformation

·  Amy Butcher, Team Manager, Holt Park Neighbourhood Care Management Team

·  Jo Browning, South Service Delivery Manager

Members were informed that the new strengths based model establishes a way of delivering adult social work practice that is:

·  Values driven

·  Community focused in achieving outcomes

·  Empowering of staff

·  A partnership with local people

·  Builds on the asset based approached already in place in Leeds

The model moves away from eligibility and assessment towards a strengths based and person centred approach. Looking at what someone can do rather than what they can’t do.

Members were informed of the following points:

·  Talking Points for the Outer North West are currently located at Yeadon Library and Horsforth Library

·  Venues need to be free not necessarily council owned, have access to WiFi, be easily accessible both in terms of accessing the building and transport links

·  There are currently 15 Talking Points across the city

·  The Social teams work collaboratively with services in the area including those services in the third sector.

·  Assessment forms had been reduced from 28 pages to 2 pages

·  Although most of the conversations were held at the Talking Point centres should a home visit be requested this would still take place.

·  During the initial call customers are given more clarity about options open to them and ‘The What’s Out There Guide’ enables call handlers to connect customers to beneficial services in their community

·  A Rapid Response Team is now in place to deal with all crisis situations with the focus on making the person safe, and to look at short term work

·  The average wait for an appointment to meet with a social worker at a Talking Point centre is currently 10 days. This is much reduced timescales

·  Teams meet to ‘peer review’ cases which provides better support plans and increases team knowledge, understanding and introduces creative solutions

·  The teams work with a number of health partners across the city

In response to Members questions and comments the following information was provided:

·  Venues for Talking Points will constantly be reviewed to ensure that they are in accessible locations and that there is the demand.

·  It was acknowledged that Otley should have a Talking Point. However Otley library had not been able to accommodate the team but arrangements have now been put in place for the team to be located at Otley library one day a month. It was noted that Otley library is currently being refurbished.

·  Links to GP’s were well established and had been for a number of years, this was just another ‘string to a big bow’

·  At present the team do not link into Children’s Services. However they do link in if the customer has a family. It was suggested that they may wish to look at working with the clusters.

·  The social workers work within the neighbourhood networks and use the knowledge to support their work and colleagues.

The Chair thanked the officers for their presentation.

RESOLVED – To:

a)  Note the update report

b)  Note the desire to return to the Community Committee Chairs Forum with a summary of this round of updates.

c)  Consider how we further build relationships between Adults and Health and local communities and benefit from Members’ expert local knowledge