SWS: Change programmes

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Service development

Helping transform services so they:

meet the legitimate aspirations of users
increase peoples' capacity to take control of their lives
are more focused on prevention
are accessible and flexible

NIGEL HENDERSON, JOINT CHAIR, SERVICE DEVELOPMENT

‘We have identified the key theme and focus of our work as “Personalisation”.We see one of our key roles as raising awareness of service issues and encouraging discussion and consideration of these amongst those involved in the design and delivery of services, and to reflect on practice.We are also exploring different models of practice with a view to bringing these together and sharing with stakeholders to help stimulate change. Another key aspect of our work is engagement with and involvement of users and carers and we will work closely with that Forum, and others, to make sure their voice is heard.

‘To date our work has focussed on developing an agreed understanding of “Personalisation”. It is imperative that we spend time on getting a clear and shared agreement on the term personalisation as this will be the foundation of all our work and has implications across the work of all the Change Programmes. This is a complex area and we are working to be true to the principles of Changing Lives as we take these issues forward.

‘The paper “Personalisation: a shared understanding” is available at www.socialworkscotland.org.uk and we hope it will stimulate discussion among practitioners, managers, commissioners as well as carers and those who use services and we would be happy to receive any views.

‘We have started discussions with a few local authorities about what they are doing in relation to individual budgeting/personalisaton/self-directed support.We have also been finding out more about In Control Scotland, which has been developed in partnership with Altrum, the Scottish Consortium for Learning Disability and a number of local authorities and various other approaches to personalising services.We’ve also looked beyond Scotland, finding out from Oldham Council about their work on individual budgets.’

January 2009

The group met in early January to discuss content for the Commissioning for Personalisation paper and accompanying discussion paper providing more detail on the issues and processes that need to be considered. Both are close to being finalised and work has begun on their format, design and distribution, along with the already available Shared Understanding of Personalisation, in a single pack/publication.

It is hoped that these papers will be available by early April 2009. In addition, the Chair has written to Local Authorities for an update on developments/approaches to personalisation. Some 14 responses have been received and a compilation report is being put together for the website to signpost people to work being done. This will conclude the work of the group .

Subject to any late changes, the group plan that their final meeting will be on 12 March.

August 2008

Personalisation was the theme of the National Practitioners Conference, held in Dunfermline on 25 June. Co-chair Nigel Henderson presented a session highlighting successful approaches to personalised services and led a workshop session to discuss the principles of personalisation and the barriers that stood in the way. The Group will be seeking views from Local Authorities on how current activities contribute to advancing the principles of personalisation.

Next Meeting of Service Development Group: 25 August

June 2008

click here to read the UDSET article from the Changing Lives Newsletter Spring/Summer 2008.

March 2008

The group last met on 25 February and work is ongoing on a number of core products to be launched by summer 2008, including the ‘Shared Understanding of Personalisation’ paper, Practice Case Studies and the ‘Commissioning for Personalisation’ paper.

December 2007

At the November meeting of the Group the ‘Personalisation — a shared understanding’ paper was signed off with the intention to issue this in the new year with a cover note from the group encouraging people to consider and use as a basis for reflection on practice/local discussion.

The group are considering some project work that might be done around the personalisation agenda and the key elements identified in the shared understanding paper. The group also intend to deliver a number of other products in 2008, including a ‘Commissioning for Personalisation’ paper, a Personalisation event and publication of Practice case studies and various approaches to personalising services.

Themes

Changing Lives did not pose structural solutions to address the problems that the 21st Century Social Work Review identified. Instead it proposed that services must be re-designed to more effectively and efficiently deliver the desired outcomes for each client group.

Achieving Changing Lives' vision for future service delivery is rightly the responsibility of local authorities and their public, private and voluntary sector partners. However, the review recognised that there is a need to develop organisational capacity to achieve such radical change and that doing so might require changes at the centre as well as at local level. This change programme therefore focuses on supporting local agencies to achieve the long term goal of transforming the delivery of social work services so that:

service users experience a service personalised to their needs, that builds upon their strengths and aspirations and develops their capacity for self care;
services are effectively joined up within and across organisational boundaries in a way that makes best use of the strengths of each organisation and minimises duplication;
there is much greater focus on prevention and earlier response to emerging problems;
service users are better able to appropriately access services.

The group has recently produced a paper on personalisation, which can be viewed by clicking the link below:
» Personalisation Paper

Achieving our aspirations in service development will require reforms not only in social work services but across the public sector in line with the five principles of public service reform.

The Service Development Change Programme will be closely integrated with other streams of Scottish Government policy.

» Click here to view the Service Development Groups Statement of Intent

The Scottish Government will also seek ways to support change more widely across public services, for example by working with the Centre for Change and Innovation and with the Joint Improvement Team and with the implementation of Getting it Right for Every Child.

Care 21 Archive

Care 21 was a small policy unit attached to the Social Work Services Policy Division and funded by the then Scottish Executive between 2004 and 2006 and it sat alongside the work being done for the 21st Century Review of Social Work.

Care 21's main objective was to create better services for people, by seeking the best ideas and practice from Scotland, UK and abroad, in the public, private and voluntary sectors.

» Click here to view the archive