GETTING OUR ACT TOGETHER Jenny Williams Statutory Director – Social Care & Education Services Conwy County Borough Council

What are the building blocks for the Act? Moving us from  Fitting people to services  Eligibility as a means of saying ‘no’  Poor access arrangements  No common standard between children’s and adult services  Reinforcement of professional and organisational territory  Giving people the ‘run- around’ Moving us to  Listening to what people tell us and designing responses with them  Exploring what will make a difference to someone’s life  Info, advice and assistance as critical for children and adults  Workers who understand each others’ business  Letting go of unhelpful territorialism

Much more than ‘social services and well-being’……..think ‘us‘ not ‘them’  It is about public health, looking after ourselves throughout our lives  It is about our housing, feeling secure and safe  It is about all professionals behaving differently – no longer ‘what can I do for you?’ but ‘help me to understand what matters to you’  It is about people being in control of their own lives  It is about thinking about a person’s whole life, not just the problem they bring  It is about safeguarding and all professionals having responsibility to take action  It is about connecting people into local support networks that will matter to them  It is about offering what would be good enough for ‘you and me’

What are the challenges?  Understanding that we have to change what we currently offer  Building strong relationships with other professionals, to share responsibility  Developing different relationships with users and carers, based on co-production – even when we have ‘real’ control over people’s lives  Understanding the increased costs of this different offer  Breaking the tradition of ‘looking after people’ and shifting to ‘looking out for people’  Ensuring that all agencies and all parts of local authorities understand the significance of the Act  Having a workforce that is prepared for/looking forward to the challenge

What are the opportunities?  Focusing continually on making a difference to people’s lives  The real excitement associated with working collaboratively with users and carers  Sharing responsibility with other agencies and professional groups for some of the most difficult decisions  A focus on avoiding those things that contribute nothing to people’s well being and/or actually harm people – prudent social care and health  Early intervention becomes the default position for our work with children and adults  People taking responsibility for their own well-being

How will we behave as employers?  Nurturing the right culture within social services, within the wider council and in our relationship with our partners  Ensuring that our staff have the right knowledge, skills and opportunity to work differently and modelling that for all other partners  Reviewing our systems to ensure that they are fit-for-purpose and able to support change  Working together, with all partners and other local authorities, to capitalize on the available knowledge and resources, including formal and informal carers, plus support networks and facilities in local neighbourhoods and communities – ‘the ordinary stuff that matters’

Reasons to be cheerful……  It is a platform for making a real difference to people’s lives  Current and future collaborations will be allowed to flourish  You will be involved in services that you will be proud of and that you would be happy for you and your loved ones to receive  It will be hard work and it will pay off – the job will be more fulfilling