Citizen Advisors - Turning Point

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Turning Point Connected Care Report 10 However, community members may need some support to do this and therefore, community engagement must be a crucial part of the effort to create a Big Society. Furthermore, involving people in the design of services may not be enough to truly build community resilience and improve the quality of life. Individuals may need support to help them to interact and engage with services and to build up their confidence so that they are able to play an active role in their communities. Citizen Advisors are well placed to provide this service and offer this type of support in communities. Personalisation Prior to the coalition government, there has been a national effort to transform adult social care and provide more responsive, flexible and personalised services for vulnerable people. The ‘Putting People First’ concordat released in 2007 put personalisation firmly on the national agenda. This commitment to the transformation of adult social care, initially outlined in the Department of Health White Paper, ‘Our Health, Our Care, Our Say: A new direction for community services’ (Department of Health, 2006), set out a new vision for the development of a person-centred approach to the delivery of services. Personalisation means that the individual is put at the centre of the process of providing care and support. As a result of personalisation, people are more in control of the services and support that they receive, thus promoting independence and increased quality of life. An important element of the personalisation agenda is the move towards the setting up of Direct Payments and Individual Budgets. These allow people to have financial control over the services that they receive. The commitment to ensuring personal choice started in social care but has since expanded with the piloting of Direct Payments in health. The personalisation agenda is also reflected in how Liberating the NHS proposes a more patient centred health service based on the principle that there is ‘no decision about me without me.’ With an increasing focus on patient choice the role of Citizen Advisors within the health and social care sectors is particularly relevant. In order to fulfil the government’s commitments to providing person-centred care, a shift in the way services are provided is required and new ways of working and job roles must be developed. A Citizen Advisor will give individuals more choice and control over the services they receive, and encourage people to seek the appropriate level of support for their needs. It is recognised that it is very difficult for people to know which services to use, how to access them and to find appropriate support in the local community. Having a single person to contact, one who is there to explain which services are available and how to access them, will be vital if people are to be more in control of the support they receive. A Citizen Advisor role will use a personcentred approach by helping individuals to access a tailored package of support that not only includes statutory care services, but utilises the local community and more informal resources - thus supporting the individual to help themselves.
Turning Point Connected Care Report 11 Personalisation is also much broader than giving people more choice over the care and support they receive. In a rough guide to personalisation the Social Care Institute for Excellence (2010) describes personalisation as: Tailoring support to people’s individual needs Ensuring that people have access to information, advocacy and advice to make informed decisions about their care and support Finding new collaborative ways of working that support people to actively engage in the design, delivery and evaluation of services Developing local partnerships to co-produce a range of services for people to choose from and opportunities for social inclusion and community development Developing the right leadership and organisational systems to enable staff to work in creative, person-centred ways Embedding early intervention, re-ablement and prevention so that people are supported early on in a tailored way Recognising and supporting carers in their role, while enabling them to maintain a life beyond their caring responsibilities Ensuring all citizens have access to universal community services and resources – a total system response For example, the personalisation agenda involves a strategic shift towards prevention, early intervention and giving people access to the information that they need to care for themselves. Both the Big Society and personalisation and early intervention agendas are important drivers for the development of Citizen Advisor services. Work carried out by Turning Point and the Ippr set the context for this type of service in 2004.
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Citizen Advisors - Turning Point

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