Residents shake up social care services
Adults across Warwickshire who receive care and support services from Warwickshire County Council are coming together next week for the counties largest ever conference to tell the authority what they think.
More than 150 people who use services from across Warwickshire, including older people, disabled people, and those receiving mental health services will be attending this year’s Customer First Conference.
The conference, now in its fourth year, is extra special as the people who receive care and support services have organised the event on their own for the first time.
It will build upon the success of last year’s event and will include question time for people to quiz the Director and senior managers. There will also be a workshop asking people about what services they would like in their community, to improve their independence, health and well being. Information stands will be around the arena to inform people of other services provided by the council.
Significant improvements have been made following feedback from last year’s conference when people told the council what was important to them.
As a result of these comments a new service ‘In your place’ has been launched to provide short breaks for family carer’s in their homes and Keith Duckitt will be taking at the conference about his experiences from a family carers perspective.
New vehicles designed with the help of people who use social care services have also been purchased and Stuart Bell, a wheel chair user who was directly involved in the improvements to the buses, will be sharing his views on the day.
Some people said that they did not want to attend large day care services. Small community groups have been found to offer a more personal service to customers. Royston Knight now attends Integr8 in Nuneaton and makes choices about how he spends his day. He will be talking about how much happier he is in a smaller group.
A group of adults with learning disabilities, the ‘Make it Easy’ group, have been looking at transport issues in Warwickshire, that affect people with a learning disability. They have produced a DVD of their work and this will be on show at the conference.
Graeme Betts, Warwickshire County Council’s Director of Adult, Health and Community Services said: “We are committed to improving our services but in order to do so we need to know what those receiving help think. This year more people than ever are coming to influence the way we provide services. We want to hear what people think of the changes we have made in response to their comments and how we can improve further.”
The conference is the main event in the year for the Customer First Team, who are committed to ensuring that people who use our services and family carers continue to be actively involved in improving and developing social care services across the county.
Councillors from Bedfordshire County Council will also be visiting on the day to see how other local authorities engage with their customers.