The Wales Alliance for CDS Steering Group and Provider Network want us all to build the Welsh principles of Citizen Directed Support together.

We want to do this in a way that builds a strong, collaborative and open Alliance from the outset.

To do this we have created a wiki group at www.welshcitizensupport.wikispaces.com, a wiki is a website that everybody can change and alter together.

On this website you will find a set of principles for Citizen Directed Support in Wales that are growing and developing through contributions from Alliance members and Provider Network.

The steering group aims to have agreed principles that have wide support and agreement by the end of November 2009.

Please do get involved in this process, you can do this by:

• Contacting debbie.chegwen@communitylives.co.uk to join the Wiki group, we will send you an invitation to join the group that will set you up as a member.
• Add your thoughts and contributions to our evolving principles on our wiki pages.
• Pass this information on to any agencies, groups or individuals that you feel have a stake or interest in this process and encourage them to get involved.
• We will send out a regular email to wiki group members containing the latest text of the principles and outlining what changes have been made.

To find out how to use the wiki group, please look at this video we have produced to explain how our wiki group works.

Please get involved, there are lots of ways you can contribute;

• You can focus on a particular principle, or all of them.
• You can focus on making the language accessible, or spelling or grammar.

However you contribute you will be building principles that have the potential to transform social care in Wales, and demonstrating our shared role in this Alliance for change.

If you don’t what to use the wiki pages please let us have your comments either by contacting Debbie Chegwen 01792 646640 debbie.chegwen@communitylives.co.uk or placing a comment on the Alliance website at www.wacds.org.uk .

There is now a facebook group which you can join at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=154370365756 .

You can find all this information on the Alliance’s website at http://wacds.org.uk/wiki_page/

The Alliance look forward to hearing from you

The officers of City and County of Swansea have really engaged in this and came up with a range of definitions for personalisation and Citizen Directed Support, thanks to them for these 100 word definitions.

Personalisation to me means the incorporation of a number of concepts. Enabling, empowering are two but behind that is ensuring that people have enough information to make an informed choice without constraint. It also means that people have the right to give the right away to trusted others. Not everyone wants responsibility and we cannot thrust it upon them. The very fact that people are touched by our services means that they have needs that they are unable to deal with at the time. Personalisation suggests that we assist in enabling people to address these needs in whatever way is right for them.

‘Citizen Directed Care allows and encourages individuals to have greater control over the services they need to obtain the independence, well-being, social interactions and autonomy which they want. It allows and enables individuals to take a greater degree of personal responsibility for their lives and lifestyles and to choose how they will engage with agencies or others to deliver services in ways which will meet the outcomes which are best for them. It will enable individuals to understand their rights and entitlements, whilst also recognising the constraints imposed by society and the responsibilities of being a citizen.’

• A fundamental shift from a consumerist model of care to a model of co-production
• Capacity building within the community, and building individual social capital within these communities (interdependence)
• A move from individuals being recipients of a service to active participants
• The outcomes agenda, individual budgets or direct payments alone will not ‘transform’ social care and a more fundamental cultural shift is required
• This will require understanding and sign up from politicians, senior and middle managers, staff and service users and their families
• Understand the changes that need to occur throughout the Commissioning Process
• It will require a change in roles for professionals and front line staff
• A change to how we perceive risk as an organisation, a change to how we contract and understand and manage performance
• A change to how we allocate and manage budgets
• Key phrases; feeling in control and having shared responsibility, having choice, flexibility and responsive services.

Personalisation should mean exactly that. As an authority we should be prepared to develop a range of solutions and options for people to have support and take action from the  individual discussions we have with people. People will vary on the levels of choice and control they aspire  to and how  they direct their own support and we need to respect that. Many will have their primary focus on improvements to the reliability, consistency and quality over the sorts of services they already receive and we need to achieve this while fostering a culture that allows for innovation for those who wish.

Personalisation is finding out what matters most to service users and carers and using this knowledge to make a positive difference to their lives. It supports their interdependence and well being, through a relationship centred and collaborative approach to the achievement of personal outcomes, in a manner which values and respects everyone concerned.

This requires:

• A common understanding of outcomes

• A commitment to social justice and equality

• Increased service user and carer control

• Supportive risk management

• Working within the context of families and communities

• Making the best possible use of all resources, including those within  families and communities

• Supporting frontline staff and volunteers

Personalisation is putting the service users with their family and carer(s) back in the centre by self assessing or co-assessing holistically.  It’s about the ethos that the individual/customer knows best, allowing/enabling people to shape and control their own services – thereby their life.  It’s about putting more resources into prevention and reablement, making people part of their community and vice versa.  Transparent allocation of resources to provide a full range of services, developing the marketplace, making choice real.  Access and inclusion where citizens have equal rights and opportunities.  It’s about supporting better health and social care outcomes by seeing images of possibilities by good support planning.  Give staff and users permission to do it differently, not prescriptions.

• Individuals are supported to have as much control over their support planning as they choose or are able to manage, through a range of methods such as individual budgets or use led services.
• They are equally helped to become part of mutually supportive communities which they have investment in and influence over.
• Agencies deliver services to individuals achieving explicitly agreed individual outcomes.
• They also actively support communities to build their capacity for collaboration and mutual assistance.
• Explicit shared systems of communication exist between individuals, community groups and agencies to support collaborative decision making and local adaptation.

The Wales Alliance for Citizen Directed Support is now picking up this approach and are building on the work to create a shared definition for Citizen Directed Support across Wales. You can find out about their work at their website at www.wacds.org.uk

In this meeting we worked on our shared principles of Citizen Directed Support. This was particularly important in preparation for a workshop Swansea Social Services was organising to look at the transformation of Social Services in Swansea in the light of the personalisation agenda.

We put together these 5 principles, which are still evolving with continuing discussion.

• Personal Control – People are supported to maximise their control of the assistance and services that they use to live their lives in the community.
• Mutual Support – People are supported and encouraged to develop, and be part of, communities around them within which they are inter-dependent and mutually supportive of each other’s needs and abilities.
• Shared Communication – People are supported to communicate with each other, interest groups, and with agencies in an equal and open fashion, this communication supports collaboration and coordination.
• Valuing Relationships – Individuals who use, support and deliver services are trusted and valued as builders and contributors.
• Shared Outcomes – Outcomes for services and support are agreed and reviewed by people who use, support and deliver services. These outcomes support successful lives, and sustainable services & communities.

We also went on to discuss the action research experiments that we want to develop to explore these themes of sustainable social care. We will publish the detail of these experiments as they form.

The programme for this meeting can be downloaded here Meeting of the 21st July 2009

Please give us you views and comments

In Control Cymru has been working with 7 local authorities and 17 provider organisations to explore and develop how people in Wales who require social care support can get control over their lives as active citizens. In Wrexham where there has been the most significant development in this area 65 people are now using individual budgets.

However the steering group of In Control Cymru recognise that it is imperative that this agenda is set within the Welsh context and unique political environment and they have come to recognise that personalisation and In Control have become synonymous with the English agenda change. They have decided to rebrand as, The Welsh Alliance of Citizen Directed Support to place greater emphasis on establishing a Welsh model of social care and to find a new way to express this which is appropriate to the context of Wales.

In light of the rebranding, The Welsh Alliance of Citizen Directed Support is seeking to work with all its stakeholder groups, ADSS Cymru, AWASH, SSIA and WAG to develop a model of social care appropriate for Wales.

The first step in this journey will be to define what Citizen Directed Support means to us in Wales.

Speaking personally, (although I need to acknowledge an interest as of last week I became chair of the Alliance Provider Network and are thus part of the Alliance Steering Group) I think this is a great opportunity and a potential threat. We have the opportunity to influence and shape a national practice agenda focused on Citizen Directed Services, many people wanted to create a genuinely Welsh model and now it is there to be created. However if we sit back, there is now a significant risk that the energy transforming services in person centered ways across the UK will pass us by and the inevitable budget pressures that we are facing will erode the quality of people lives in a slow but sure fashion.

So I think we should all take some time to answer the question
What Citizen Directed Support means to us? – possibly in 100 words or less

Well here goes here is mine (although I am sure it will change)?

• Citizen Directed Support means that individuals are supported to have control over the services that they use through a range of methods such as individual budgets or user led services. However they are equally supported to become part of mutually supportive communities who they have investment in and influence over. Agencies deliver services to individuals acheiving explicitly agreed individual outcomes; however they also actively support communities to build their capacity for collaboration and mutual assistance. Explicit shared systems for communication exist between individuals, community groups and agencies to support collaborative decision-making and local adaptation. (94 words – I should have said 150 or less)

Somebody else have a go!