Making radical everyday practice

Radical Approaches

About me

• A social worker and proud of it!• A activist not a theorist • Trained in Plymouth and then went to work in social

services, health, regulation and campus closures• Constantly felt things should be better for people• Started consultancy to model how things could be more

personalised• Enough is Enough – Time for Change!• People agreed but saw no change • Decided best to do it myself!

What got me started

Key theories:• Social Role Valorization – Dr. Wolf

Wolfensberger (1983)• Social Model of Disability – Mike Oliver (1983)• Keys to Citizenship – Dr. Simon Duffy (2006)Meeting some inspiring people And the people I met – families and people with

learning disabilities

About Beyond Limits

• 3 year project with NEW Devon CCG Personalising Commissioning

• Using Individual Service Funds • Using Service Design & Working Policy• 20 people currently in Hospital placements• 20 people with big reputations• 20 people who will get a tailor made service • 20 people who will get a life that makes sense to

them

What does ‘Radical’ mean to me

• Never think of myself about being radical!• Having a passion for what I do• Can do attitude – ‘never give up!’• Thinking ‘out of the box’• Not accepting systems that hold people back• Never losing sight of the person and bringing

power back to the person

Real Wealth

The resources that keep people resilient and fighting for a good life

Strengths – skills, gifts and abilities Connections (relationships) – family, friends,

community networks and organisations Community (Access) – information, emotional and

physical support Control (Assets) – income, property, savings, benefitsPippa Murray, Simon Duffy, Nic Crosby (2008)

The World We Work Within

• Health (medical model still persists) – patients, medicine and programmes

• ‘Winterbourne’ is not a one off• Power imbalance to professionals• Families excluded • People seen as the problem• People and community torn apart

Jim Mansell 2007 Individualised, local solutions providing good quality of life not those too

large to provide individualised support, too far from their homes, and providing good quality of life in the home and as part of the local community.

Direct payments and individual budgets should always be considered and be more widely available.

Closer co-ordination between the commissioners paying for services, the managers providing services and the professional specialist advising on the support people need to ensure advice is both practicable and acted on.

Commissioners should allocate a budget to be used to fund a much wider variety of interventions as an alternative to placement in a special unit.

Jim Mansell ‘Services for people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour or mental health needs’ 2007

So where do we start?

Service Design

‘Every service is designed, from scratch, with only the person in mind, and modified in the light of experience and as things change. Individual service design in rooted in the organisation’s commitment to help everyone achieve citizenship for themselves’.

You can’t plan without a Budget! Planning and pre-move

transition is funded (one off payment clawed back through reductions from years 2 onward)

Post move transition is funded

On-going budget flexible in first year

Greatest reductions after year two and three

The ‘how to’ bit!

• Many great plans are made and fall down because they are not followed up by a detailed ‘how to’ bit.

• It is fundamentally important that once a service is designed a ‘how to’ plan is written. Partners for Inclusion and Beyond Limits call this a Working Policy.

• Involves the person (if they wish), present and past professionals and family

If you always do what you always did

You will always get what you always got

Think Radical!

Exercise

Contacts

Sam Sly

Beyond Limits

sam@beyondlimits-uk.org sam.sly@enoughisenough.org.uk

07900 424144

www.beyondlimits-uk.org