Shaping Social Care in Barnet

Inclusion Barnet have been awarded a grant by Trust for London to research and campaign for deaf and disabled people to have the best social care possible from the Local Authority.

We are carrying out in-depth research with Barnet Council’s adult social care users, whatever their needs.

It is called The Co-Produced Support Project because it will be guided by our Steering Group of deaf and disabled people – many of whom will be using Council services.

It is called The Co-Produced Support Project because we at Inclusion Barnet as a peer led Deaf and Disabled Person’s Organisation (DDPO) will be taking our research learning and our lived experience to the Council and work with them shaping adult social care services. .

Minutes of our first steering group meeting on the 2nd July 2021 https://www.inclusionbarnet.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/The-Co-Produced-Support-Project-Steering-Group-minutes-020721-2.pdf

The group is made up of members who have experience of disability including mental health issues and many are Barnet Council social care users.

We also have some professional members who have experience of Social Care, Co-Production and Disability research methodology.

The group will meet once every three months, and the group agenda, materials and minutes will be made available on this page.

We are looking for adult residents of Barnet, and their carers, who are currently using any of the council’s social care services. We want them to play a key part in shaping adult social care in the borough.

HAVE YOUR SAY EASY READ

We hope to achieve with The Co-Produced Support Project:

  • User led research that learns about people’s experience and the ways to improve that experience.
  • Show that involving users in local decision making is effective, good for users and should be on-going.
  • Produce a toolkit that will help Barnet Council and other organisations to include users when they make decisions about the services they provide.

So, that is why, we are looking for people over the age of 18, and where appropriate their friends, relatives or carer, who use either residential or in-home social care services from the Local Authority. 

We would like them to give their views of the care they receive and how that can be improved.

We want to make sure that we have a good spread of people of all ages and different care needs.

Everything that is said will be confidential.

That is, we will not say who has said what to anybody else. We will just say what is said but not by whom.

Only the project lead and Inclusion Barnet will have that information.

We want people that use adult social care services to have their voices heard and acted upon.

We know that your time is precious, and we will make every effort to make sure that the experience of being involved is clear, useful and respectful.

If you are interested in being involved, please contact the project lead Banos.

Banos Alexandrou

Project Lead: The Co-Produced Support Project

e-mail:            banos@inclusionbarnet.org.uk

mobile:           +44 7719 105247

SwitchBoard  020 3475 1314

We are looking for volunteers to help us with this project.

There are many ways of getting involved.

We need people to help us find adult social care users or their carers (where appropriate) that would like to get involved in the research.

These are often the most difficult to find, because their voice is rarely really heard.

We also need people to help us with interviewing and analysing the research findings.

This is an excellent opportunity to be involved in an important and pioneering project.

We welcome all Barnet residents, but we are particularly interested in people who have experience of caring for relatives or are themselves deaf or disabled in any way.

The experience that can be gained from this project ranges from how to do research, campaigning through to learning about how local policy is made.

Any experience will be documented and references made available to those who work on the project.

If you are interested in being a part of this then please fill out the following form and we will be in touch as soon as we can.

Thank You

The Co-Produced Support Project

The Co-Produced Support Project

Get Involved

The 2014 Care Act made a number of changes to the way local authorities were to assess and provide social care. It brought a number of new responsibilities and duties.

One of those duties was the duty to co-produce adult social care policy. This is a very difficult duty to enforce, and there is always a danger that local authorities will say they co-produce but are simply consulting or researching users.

Co-production at its best is where users are involved throughout the process of policy development. Involved in finding what the problems are, involved in thinking about what solutions can address those problems and being involved in the decisions that then need to be made.

We think that the Think Local Act Personal ladder of co-production is a really useful way of thinking about the approach. This is our ambition on the project.

Next year we will be producing a conference on co-production activity across London. So watch this space!!!