Citizen Advisors - Turning Point

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Turning Point Connected Care Report 38 4. The role of Citizen Advisors should not be limited to signposting to existing services but encompass wider support across early intervention, self care and building community capacity. This report has indicated that building social capital and increasing informal connections in the community, as well as more formal links to mainstream services, can help people to be more independent and supported in their local area. Providing and signposting people to social activities and community networks and services is an effective way of preventing the need for more costly statutory services in the future, particularly amongst older people. Indeed, prevention and early intervention are at the heart of the personalisation/localism agenda, and Citizen Advisors are an appropriate and efficient way in which this message can be spread to service users with individuals encouraged to access the appropriate level of support to address their needs. This has been illustrated in the Partnerships for Older People Projects which has had great success in decreasing reliance on statutory services and reducing the associated costs. The Local Area Coordinators, for example, have made efforts to support individuals to get more involved with their local communities. Similarly, an important aspect of the village agents’ role is the organising of and linking of people into social activities with the aim of maintaining their independence. This is particularly important in rural areas, where there is likely to be fewer services and people need more support to access and travel to community projects. Citizen Advisors should, therefore, seek to motivate and mentor individuals to build their aspirations for change and to take responsibility for their well-being, to help connect them with existing community networks, and ultimately remove their reliance on statutory services. Encouraging individuals to manage their own health and well-being and to get more involved in the community helps to build local resilience as well as leading to the more appropriate and effective use of services and resources. Furthermore, through working amongst the community, Citizen Advisors may have the knowledge of local need and the expertise to support or to lead the coordination of timebanking activities in their local area. Timebanks are frameworks that allow people who would not normally meet to come together and help one another by sharing their skills, experiences and time. Time banking values everyone's time as equal, 1 hour equals 1 hour, or 1 credit. For every hour you spend helping someone in your community you are entitled to an hour of help in return. Time Bank members can give and receive support such as lifts to the Doctors or the Hospital, accompanying people to the shops, befriending and companionship, gardening help etc. All of which are services and types of support that enable people to be more independent and engaged in their local communities.
Turning Point Connected Care Report 39 5. Citizen Advisors must provide a holistic, flexible and responsive service that is built around the needs of the client and able to meet people’s inter-connected needs. Citizen Advisors should take a holistic approach to improving health and wellbeing by focusing on employment skills, social capital, and alleviating housing and debt problems. Citizen Advisors should act as a single point of access to services to help communities get the support that they need and help them to interact with services. They should be able to provide an immediate assessment across health and wellbeing, meaning that Citizen Advisors take on an encompassing role that is not limited to health and social care, but is flexible and can support people with employment, financial, housing or community issues, for example. Citizen Advisors should provide an integrated health and social care service. Integration in health and social care can improve the efficiency, quality and continuity of service delivery, thus leading to improved service user experiences and outcomes. In addition, the provision of integrated services addresses the changing and increasing demand for care that comes alongside the growing older population, and it is also recognised to provide significant financial benefits. A Citizen Advisor is also well placed to work across the boundaries of health and social care, providing flexible support that responds to peoples’ individual needs. This would lead to the development of a more encompassing Citizen Advisor role that promotes general health and well-being through addressing the issues that are affecting the client. In addition, this may involve working with partners across sectors. Citizen Advisors should be supported by a strong team of professionals who are connected to different organisations and agencies. This joint working can help Citizen Advisors provide support across health, housing, social care, employment and so on. The RightSteps model developed by Turning Point to support people with low level mental health needs is an example of a service that seeks to wrap support around the needs of the individual through sustaining good relationships with other agencies. There is potential for elements of this model to be adopted when developing and delivering a Citizen Advisor service. Moreover, it is crucial that there is clarity over the Citizen Advisor role as it is developed in different areas. This is important not only for service users, but for the other agencies in the local area as it gives credibility to the role amongst professionals. Since the networks and connections between other organisations and services are so fundamental to the Citizen Advisor role, it is important that the advisors establish good working relationships, and central to this is clarity over the role itself. It is important that other stakeholders champion the service and understand how it fits into the work that they are doing. However, there is also a risk that by adopting this approach that the Citizen Advisor service can add another layer of complexity onto an already complex service landscape. This needs to be taken into consideration through service
Page 1 and 2: Turning Point Connected Care Report
Page 37: Turning Point Connected Care Report
Page 43: Turning Point Connected Care Report

Citizen Advisors - Turning Point

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?