Your examples of individual budgets and direct payments

Go back to the previous page (General Autism)

Posted by
Sasha Daly

on 11th February 2010

at 11:07

Hi all

TreeHouse is currently working with the Council for Disabled Children (CDC) on looking into how personalisation of public services will impact families and children with disabilities. This experience will most likely be related to paying and accessing services on an individual basis so that services can be more tailored to individual needs, particularly health services under the initiatives of direct payments or individual budgets.

I’d like to know about any examples of personalisation that individual families or groups of parents or young people may already be involved with so that I can inform the CDC about what is happening in practice. CDC is then advising the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), so this is a great opportunity to have your experiences influence how the DCSF will implement individual budgets. The DCSF is currently running pilots of individual budgets for families with disabled children in six local authorities, more information about these pilots can be found on the DCSF website: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/healthandwellbeing/ahdc/individualbudgets/individualbudgets/

So, if there are good examples or challenges that are happening please let me know. I’m afraid the deadline is quite tight – 22 February. However, at this point just a few lines to say that you have experiences you’d like to share and what they are in brief would be good.

You can email me directly on sdaly@treehouse.org.uk, call me on 0208 815 5441, request that I give you a call back, or post a reply to me on the forum.If anyone would like to be kept updated about the next steps of the working group and any outcomes I can keep you informed - just let me know and I can collect your names and email addresses and let you know. I hope that’s all clear it would be great to hear from you.

Many thanks

Sasha

Posted by
asteroids

on 11th February 2010

at 11:54

Hi Sasha,

I don't have any personal experience of this but I have had enquiries from a number of adults asking if they can use direct payments to access my services. Unfortunately, the main problem with autism support is that direct payments seem to offer a support worker/carer rate close to the minimum wage which is not enough to employ someone qualified/trained in ASD.

If someone does manage to secure direct payments and understand how to manage them, they then have to find a suitable person to provide the support they need. This can be difficult for someone with ASD: where to start, how to advertise, how to interview a person, how to tell if that is the right person for the job. Then, how to ensure that the support works and what to do if it doesn't.

Many adults with ASD, trying to live independent lives, do not need a carer to cook, clean or do the shopping. What they do need is someone with training and experience in ASD to provide floating support, to make sure that bills are paid, that the person is managing to get out, get to work, socialise etc. An experienced support worker would know what questions to ask, what to look for to check that the person is coping etc.

Asteroids Sara - Community Champion

Posted by
Sasha Daly

on 12th February 2010

at 14:07

Thanks Sara, that's really helpful.

It's really useful to get a feel for how and if this agenda can work for autism services, and as you've pointed out there are still quite a few gaps or lack of understanding about specific types of services and ways in which direct payments might impact on access to these.

If anyone else has information that isn't directly their own experience it would be great to hear that too.

Many thanks

Sasha

TreeHouse Policy and Parliamentary Manager