Carers Rights Day Charity Collection – Can you help?

Please let us know if you can come along and help with the collection. We will provide buckets and support. We are looking for people to help out through the day (from 08:00 – 20:00. Please call the office on 020 7708 4497 to volunteer.

Carers Trust responds to the Government’s Green Paper plans for social care reform

“England’s five million carers – whether they are young adult carers, working-age carers, or older carers – are all still waiting for their own social care needs to be met, as well as those of the people they care for.

“The fact that carers are not mentioned in the First Secretary’s statement is completely at odds with what the government has repeatedly heard from carers about their social care needs, particularly carers’ recent engagement with the Carers Strategy.

“With no timeline for funding reform for young adult carers or working age carers, how much longer is the government going to delay on this?”

London Borough of Culture: have you backed Southwark’s bid?

Each winning borough will receive more than £1 million from the Mayor of London and will run a huge and exciting programme of cultural events, that will feature the talents of both global superstars and local people within its year.

Organisations and individuals such as Sir Mark Rylance, Jenny Éclair, Frances Morris, Copeland Park, Central School of Ballet, London Bubble, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Unicorn Theatre, and many more are all putting their name to the bid, developing ideas with us and asking others to pledge their support.

Our bid will build unexpected allegiances to create radical ideas that connect people no matter who you are or what your experience is. We hope you will be part of this amazing opportunity to shine a spotlight on the talent and flair of our residents.

We are calling on you, the people of Southwark, to join us as pioneers in our bid to become London Borough of Culture. Please take a moment to add your name in support of Southwark’s bid.

We can’t fix social care if we think it’s just for older people

The government’s promise to consult on social care in England provides an opportunity to bring about change. But for too long, this debate has almost exclusively focused on older people, overlooking those who need care and support much earlier in life.

More than 280,000 working age disabled adults rely on social care to lead independent, healthy lives. When done right, it empowers them not just to live, but to have a life.

At the MS Society, our new report, End the Care Crisis: Stories from people affected by MS in England, demonstrates the transformative impact social care can have for people with multiple sclerosis (MS). From Edith, whose support enables her to get to work each morning, to Martyn who, with the support of a carer, is able to do things others might take for granted, like go to the cinema.

It also highlights the devastating consequences when people aren’t able to get adequate support. Take Angela, for example. At just 35 with two young children, her husband (and carer) is at breaking point. And yet the first time she contacted the council for support, she was told help was only given to people in wheelchairs.

The system continues to fail us, and that is totally unacceptable.

Disabled people aged 18-64 make up a third of long-term social care users, accounting for almost half of the social care budget. We already know that younger people with MS are less likely to get proper support – only 32% of 18- to 29-year-olds with MS have all their care needs met, compared with 73% of those aged 70 to 79. But this isn’t the only thing illustrating the age divide.

Perhaps one of the most worrying symptoms of our failing social care system is the number of younger adults living in care homes for older people. A Freedom of Information request by the MS Society revealed more than 3,300 adults under 65 are in this situation in England. This indicates that, across the country, almost one in seven younger disabled adults in residential care could be in homes with mostly older people, and potentially missing out on the specialist care they need.

Not only are care homes for older people rarely equipped to meet all the needs of younger adults, living in such settings can be extremely isolating, and have a damaging impact on their quality of life and mental health. This is just one example of a much broader, deep-seated problem.

As a country, we do not provide younger adults with conditions such as MS the care we know they need. The question of how we fund and deliver quality social care has been a subject of debate in this country for at least 20 years. We’ve seen 10 government consultations and reviews of social care in that time, yet our politicians have failed to make the difficult decisions on the back of these.

Social care remains in crisis and there will be a £2.5bn funding gap by the end of the decade. While it’s promising that the government last month finally acknowledged the need to improve social care for younger as well as older people, we must hold it to account on this.

There is increasing evidence that fixing the social care system makes sense – not just ethically and morally but financially too. Reform could help prevent and delay acute needs from developing, reduce pressure on the NHS, galvanise local economies and, most importantly, enable disabled people to live independent, dignified and productive lives.

This latest consultation has to involve disabled people of all ages, offering real action and a bold vision for the future. One that recognises the experiences of everyone who depends on social care, and finally gives us a system that works for all who need it.

Have your say on Citizen Engagement in the Lambeth & Southwark Strategic Partnership

The partnership is committed to involving local people in its work. (This is in addition to the way that the individual organisations already engage people.) Your responses to this survey will help us to understand the best ways to do this.

The survey will close at 4pm on Saturday 18 November

Please click here for the survey

Colouring books for adults benefit mental health, study suggests

The adult colouring book craze has thereupeutic mental health benefits, New Zealand researchers have found, including reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Colouring-in books for adults first caught on two years ago with bookshops around the globe devoting shelves to the generally childhood pursuit, and titles like The Secret Garden topping Amazon’s bestseller list.

Adult fans of colouring-in described the hobby as a calming relaxation tool with nostalgic undertones that they used to express creativity and unplug from the digital and screen heavy modern world.

Now, psychology researchers at the University of Otago in New Zealand have found there are definite mental health gains for adults colouring-in for as little as 10 minutes a day.

The study, published in the Creativity Research Journal, found the unusual past-time could potentially be used as an accessible and cheap self-help tool to manage some symptoms of poor mental health.

Joint author Dr Celia Lie from the University of Otago said she and her colleagues embarked on the study to see whether adult colouring in books would “live up to the hype” – and so far their research had shown they did.

But lead author Jayde Flett said further questions needed to be answered to discover how and why colouring-in was effective.

“It is often suggested that colouring-in induces a mindful or meditative state and is linked to reduced activity in the amygdala or changes in brain-wave activity,” said Flett.

“But we showed that mindful activity wasn’t the driving factor of change because people who did the puzzles also became more mindful.”

The researchers tested 115 women aged 18 to 36 years old, and found those who were assigned a week of colouring in tasks rather than other mind games such as sudoku reported lower levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms, though both groups reported feeling more mindful.

Joint author Dr Tamlin Conner said colouring-in – even within the lines – could be enough of a creative endeavour to soothe a stressed mind; in a similar way to cooking or gardening.

“Our findings bode well for the potential psychological benefits of colouring-in,” Conner said.

“In this way, colouring-in could be considered an act of everyday little-c creativity, in much the same way as gardening or gourmet cooking.

“With its low risk and accessibility, we feel comfortable adding colouring-in to the growing list of creative activities for improving mental health outcomes.”

Charities can be a lifeline for older people as statutory services suffer

Over the past 20 years, government and media attention has increasingly been drawn to the rising numbers of elderly people in our society and the consequent spiralling costs of health and social care for this section of the population. At the same time, the pressures on the NHS and local authorities, specifically financial pressures, have been widely documented and worried over. With mounting costs and reducing governmental input, the NHS and local authorities have been squeezed to a point where they are faced with invidious choices about where to prioritise their efforts and target their funding.

The number of people aged 85 and over has risen by almost a third since 2007 and is set to double in the next 20 years, according to an Age UK report published in February, while care providers suffered a £160 million cut in spending in real terms in the decade between 2010/11 and 2015/16. Further, nearly 1.2 million people aged 65 and over are not receiving the help they need with essential daily living, a 1.7% increase on 2016 and a 48% increase since 2010.

Voluntary sector

In this environment of rising demand and cuts to statutory services’ funding, the voluntary sector is becoming increasingly important. A King’s Fund Report in September 2016 noted how the voluntary sector is “keeping services going even when funding [has been] curtailed”. However, there is evidence that the voluntary sector is doing much more than keeping services going; in one area at least, it is significantly enhancing the experience of older age for thousands of local residents who would otherwise be at best struggling and at worst isolated, ignored and ill. The local Neighbourhood Elders Team (NET) in Garforth, Leeds is providing much more than a stop gap, as a recent piece of research has demonstrated.

The NET was founded in 1995 with the initial aim of providing a place for older people to meet, share experiences and get help with practical day-to-day matters. Since then, as demand has mushroomed, NET has grown and developed into a major provider of support for local elderly people, becoming an independent charity in 2001. Over time, staff at NET have developed extensive links with local health and care professionals. So much so that local GPs, social services and care providers have come to rely on NET as a point of referral and, often, initial assessment.

More than that, NET has developed a network of facilities throughout the local area to provide social activities and contacts for elderly, isolated, bereaved, infirm and able bodied people. These activities include chair yoga, Pilates, dance exercise, luncheon clubs and coffee mornings, as well as events and groups for specific conditions such as a dementia café, falls clinic and stroke group.

As part of a bid for funding earlier this year, NET commissioned a small piece of research to investigate the anecdotally held belief that involvement in NET activities and support generally meant that older people would have less recourse to the services of the NHS. In this way, it was hypothesised that involvement in NET would save the NHS money and contribute to the health and well-being of people in the later stages of their lives. The findings exceeded even the most optimistic expectations.

Cost savings and improved wellbeing

Over the 12-week research period, expenditure on the health and care needs of a group who had no contact with or input from NET was, on average, more than seven times as much as for those who attended no more than one NET activity a week – £138.26 a week compared to £18.59. Attendance at two or more NET activities reduced average expenditure to a mere £7.06. Moreover, over the 12-week research period, while the non-NET clients showed no change in expenditure, NET clients saved a weekly average of between £49.96 and £53.74 depending on how much involvement they had with NET.

Of course, when assessing quality of life, it is not enough to focus solely on financial outlay. The research project also looked at what elderly people felt about themselves and their lives. Again, the results demonstrated clearly that involvement with NET enhanced quality of life; with just minimal involvement with NET, elderly people reported feeling much more positive about themselves and optimistic about their futures. Using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale, the scores given by clients of NET were consistently higher and, on many of the factors, more than double those given by non-NET clients.

‘It’s like being reborn’

As a final aspect of the research, a number of clients were interviewed to gain a fuller picture of their feelings about NET and what they believed they gained from being part of it. The responses were unanimously positive with comments such as “it’s a lifeline for me”; “NET is like being in a big family”; “it’s like being reborn”. Several said that, without NET, they would be “lost”, “just sat at home watching the telly”, “feeling sorry for myself”, “all alone”, “stuck inside doing nothing”. Two said they “probably wouldn’t be here without NET”. Most spoke about the fun and laughter they had, and how they looked forward to going there to meet friends they would otherwise not have had.

“As the researcher who conducted the interviews, it was humbling to listen to the struggles that many of the elderly people were dealing with on a daily basis; yet, they had all found a new lease of life at NET, they felt they could be useful again and that life had some purpose.”

They were able to forget, for a while at least, their aches and pains, their loneliness and worry, and share their remarkable histories and experiences. Their testimonies made it easy to understand just why NET was able to achieve so much and in ways that local health and social care agencies could not, whether because of lack of resources or because they weren’t drawing on the remarkable healing power of elderly people themselves.

Overall, the research findings are compelling and, in these times of stringent cuts in NHS and social care provision, surely it would make sense for the funders to consider directing some of their resources to responsible, well-managed agencies such as NET which can provide critically needed support for a fraction of the cost.

Story is reproduced courtesy of Community Care – http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2017/11/03/charities-can-lifeline-older-people-statutory-services-suffer/

Growing proportion of social work assessments leading to no action, official statistics show

The proportion of initial social work assessments not leading to further action has hit its highest level in six years, government statistics show.

Of those referrals that led to an assessment, 27.8% resulted in no further action, up 2.4 percentage points on the previous year, according to the ‘characteristics of children in need’ statistics.

The figures, published this week, also showed the highest number of referrals to children’s services in three years, in the year ending 31 March 2017.

The statistics also found that fewer referrals to children’s services resulted in no assessment at all. Only 10% of referrals resulted in no further action, a decrease of a third over the past six years.

In total, local authorities carried out 606,920 assessments in 2016-17, a 6% increase on the previous year, with the average assessment time being 29 days.

The number of child protection enquiries carried out by children’s services also rose 7.6% on the previous year, to 185,450. The number of children on a child protection plan also increased to a record high, with 51,080 on a plan at the end of 2016-17.

More than half of assessments identified abuse or neglect as a primary need at the start, while at the end of assessments domestic violence was found to be a factor in the lives of 49.9% of children in need.

Story is reproduced courtesy of Community Care – http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2017/11/03/growing-proportion-social-work-assessments-leading-action-official-statistics-show/

Food banks warn of struggle to cope this Christmas due to universal credit

Food banks have said they will struggle to meet the soaring need for emergency food supplies from low-income families this Christmas as hardship caused by the six-week waiting period for universal credit payment starts to bite.

The Trussell Trust, the UK’s biggest food bank network, said demand for its parcels in areas where full service universal credit is in operation had increased by an average of 30% since April, compared with 12% in sample areas not yet covered by the new benefit system.

Releasing its mid-year figures, the trust said universal credit waits, reduced disability entitlements, the freeze on benefit increases and low pay had driven up referrals to its food banks by 13%, putting it on course to deliver record levels of food aid this year.

The trust, whose 428 food bank centres have given out 587,000 three-day emergency food packages since April, called on ministers to take urgent action to reduce the minimum 42-day waiting time for a first universal credit payment.

“The simple truth is that even with the enormous generosity of our donors and volunteers, we’re concerned food banks could struggle to meet demand this winter if critical changes to benefit delivery aren’t made now,” said Mark Ward, Trussell’s interim chief executive.

Meanwhile, research by one of the UK’s biggest social landlords estimates that the mandatory six-week wait for a first universal credit payment will put more than 23,000 low-income UK families at risk of destitution in the run-up to Christmas.

About 41,000 children live in households due to move on to universal credit from mid-November, leaving parents struggling to afford seasonal treats and gifts as well as basic living essentials, the Peabody Trusthousing association said.

Brendan Sarsfield, Peabody’s chief executive, said: “Six weeks’ minimum wait for payment is too long and is pushing the poorest into greater debt. The government should pause the rollout and reduce the waiting period to two weeks. This could ensure 40,000 households get some money in time for Christmas.”

About 118 jobcentres in areas including Birmingham, Manchester, Wolverhampton, Lambeth, Swansea, Brighton, Dundee, Newport, Gateshead, Waltham Forest, Reading and Oxfordshire are scheduled to move on to the full universal credit system over the next few weeks.

In the absence of official forecasts, Peabody used recent data on universal credit starts and family types to calculate that 39% of the estimated 60,000 households coming on to the system in November and December would contain children.

There is no official data on numbers of children for each universal credit household, so Peabody used the UK household average of 1.74 to reach the figure of 41,000 children. It added: “Our estimate may be underestimating the actual number here, as families are taking a growing proportion of the increase now that the full service is being rolled out.”

The chair of the all-party Commons work and pensions committee, Frank Field, whose Birkenhead constituency will shift on to universal credit this month told the Guardian that waits for the new benefit would push many families “to the brink of destitution” in the run-up to Christmas.

Field said in a Commons debate last month that the main food bank in Birkenhead was looking to stockpile an extra 15 tonnes of supplies to enable it to manage the expected explosion in demand following the arrival of universal credit. Ministers replied that they did not expect food bank use to increase.

The Department for Work and Pensions said there was no causal link between food bank use and welfare reform and it would be “misleading” to suggest so. It described the Peabody figures as “speculative”. A spokesperson said: “We’re clear that advance payments are widely available from the start of anyone’s universal credit claim and urgent cases are fast-tracked so no one should be without funds.”

However, a recent report by the work and pensions committee on universal credit concluded that advance loans offered only limited help because claimants were able to borrow the equivalent of up to only two weeks’ universal credit income to help them through the six-week waiting period.

The committee’s inquiry into universal credit, published last week, received copious evidence from landlords and claimants showing that the mandatory 42-day wait leaves many people struggling to pay rent and meet basic living costs. About a fifth wait longer than six weeks for a first payment, while an estimated 85% do not have a month’s worth of savings to tide them over.

There are about 600,000 people on full service universal credit, and by the time it is fully rolled out in 2022 an estimated 7 million are expected to claim it. Universal credit was designed to simplify the benefits system by bundling six existing entitlements – including unemployment benefit, housing benefit and working tax credit – into one. However, the long-delayed programme, which is five years behind schedule, has run into huge criticism as a result of huge cuts, administrative errors and complexity.

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Southwark Carers are a registered Foodbank voucher provider for more information click here

Four in ten children’s services unable to meet legal duties due to funding pressures, finds survey

Four in ten children’s services are unable to meet one or more of their statutory duties due to budget restraints, a survey of council leaders has revealed.

The survey of local councillors responsible for children’s services, carried out by the National Children’s Bureau, found 35% felt their local authority lacked the resources to support children in need, while 41% felt unable to fulfil at least one of their statutory duties as a result of funding pressures.

More than a third (35%) of councillors said there was insufficient funding to help children in care, while 30% said they lacked resources to support children with child protection plans.

Two-thirds of councillors from the 101 local authorities surveyed said there wasn’t enough money to provide universal services like children’s centres and youth clubs.

‘Action’

Anna Feucthwang, chief executive of the National Children’s Bureau, said the government “must take action” to provide families with the support they need.

The vast majority of councillors (87%), said demand for services had risen over the last two years. Half felt this was partly due to increased levels of poverty and hardship while 45% cited cuts to other services, such as housing support, as contributory factors. Nearly a quarter said that rising levels of abuse and neglect was contributing to increases in demand, while 36% said professionals getting better at spotting the signs of children being in need was a factor.

The number of children in care is at the highest it has ever been, according to government figures, and the Local Government Association has issued repeated warnings about a potential £2 billion funding gap in children’s services budgets by 2020.

Feuchtwang said: “It’s becoming increasingly clear that across England local authorities are struggling to meet the needs of children and young people, including those at considerable risk.”

She added: “We should be stepping in to help these children as early as possible, but with two-thirds of lead members saying they have insufficient resources to provide universal services, prevention and early help are falling by the wayside, as councils are forced to prioritise funds for those closest to crisis.”

Reform

Children’s minister Robert Goodwill said spending on children’s services had increased.

“In 2015 we made more than £200 billion available to local authorities for services up to 2019-20, and local authorities increased spending on children and young people’s services to over £9 billion in 2015-16,” Goodwill said.

“In addition to this, we are investing £200 million in our Innovation Programme so councils and others have support to trial ways to reform services to be more effective. As part of this, we have announced £20 million to provide additional support to local authorities where risk of failure is highest.”

Story is reproduced courtesy of Community Care – http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2017/10/31/four-ten-childrens-services-unable-meet-legal-duties-due-funding-pressures-finds-survey/