being able to take risks and contribute to society. This means that there
needs to be a shift in power away from people who commission and
provide services to service users and carers.” Users and Carers Panel
However, we believe that this is the desirable direction for the future of social work services, therefore it is important that services are developed to test our understanding of the principles of personalisation in the different contexts of children and families, community care and criminal justice. These approaches should be developed in partnership with the people who use services, their carers and workers. Thus ensuring that people are active participants in shaping, creating and delivering their care, in conjunction with their paid and unpaid carers, so that it meets their distinctive needs and their hopes for themselves (Leadbeater and
Lownsbrough (2005)).
Building capacity
In order to develop a new model of service, we will need to exploit and develop the capacity of the whole public sector and of the individuals and families who use public services. Such an approach will involve:
● social work services designed around the needs of those who use services and their carers;
● more differentiated care pathways, recognising and nurturing the potential that many individuals, families and communities have to find their own solutions and to self care;
● refocusing resources on multi agency prevention and early intervention strategies and being prepared to take a long term view of the benefits this will bring;
● exploiting the full potential of integrated services to reduce the duplication that exists across public services and to deliver new
evidence based solutions drawing on the totality of available resources; and
● taking advantage of the many opportunities presented by the mixed economy of public, voluntary and private care.
Our five recommendations aim to make the best use of existing human and financial resources in social work services and across all sectors. They will start to focus our resources on doing the right things and doing these consistently well. The first
recommendation describes the
significant changes we expect to see in the way services are designed and delivered to meet the needs of people who use services and their carers. The following four recommendations make proposals about how we can build capacity to achieve this.
1. Social work services must be designed and delivered around the needs of people who use services, their carers and communities This requires:
● standards for access to social work services led by those who use services and their carers; ● participative and empowering
assessment;
● recognition of unpaid carers as partners and providers of care alongside professionals; ● seamless transitions between
different parts of the service for people who use services and their carers;
● services provided from premises that are fit for purpose; and ● that we further our understanding
of the implications of developing personalised social work services.
Improving access to services
The difficulty of accessing services, or reliable information about them, has been a consistent message from both people who use services and the general public. Findings from our public attitudes survey (Mori, 2005) showed that most people have a limited knowledge of what social work services can and cannot offer, meaning that some have unrealistic
expectations, whereas others, who do need help, don’t realise that they could seek it. Moreover, it identified that social work services are regarded as a service of last resort, with people feeling that they were a failure if they had to seek help. Developing modern, effective services requires as a starting point a well informed public, who feel empowered to use services
appropriately. There is a need for a consistent and open approach, with easy access to information and advice as well as a simple means to contact services and a prompt, helpful
response. This should be underpinned by the development of national
standards covering:
● information about services; what, when, how and who they can help must be readily available in a wide variety of formats and using different media;
● methods of contacting services
through a variety of media, including telephone, internet, e-mail, and text messaging;
● multiple points of entry to a single system of service delivery to signpost people to the person who can best help them;
● eligibility criteria should be explicit promoting fairness and
transparency;
● planned services available when people need them, matching known need with service hours, using intelligence and technology such as geographical mapping to ensure that services respond to need; and
● responsive unplanned services, user led and better integrated with mainstream social work services and other emergency services including police, health, housing and benefit agencies.
The Criminal Justice Social Work Development Centre is working with the Scottish Institute for Excellence in Social Work Education’s learning exchange to produce an electronic throughcare map for prisoners, families and agencies. This will provide easily understood information on prison life, family contact, early release and post sentence supervision. It will be interactive and will include relevant scenes performed by actors
portraying prisoners, prison officers and social workers.