Joint Engagement Forum (JEF) January 2023
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Local Engagement round up
Carer Ambassadors (CA)
A carer ambassador came to share the carer ambassador report and highlighted some key points from it. Work has been done on Warm Hubs and information is has been sent out to as many people as possible TEPS (Treatment Escalation Plans) have been a topic of discussion recently and encouraging people to make sure they have an up-to-date plan. Chime hearing assessment services have an over 6month waiting list to be and people suffering as a result waiting to be seen.
Learning Disability Partnership Board (LDPB)
Meeting is being held every 2 months over virtual Microsoft Teams. The members have discussed recently Living Well in Devon strategy and looked at the Easy Read version of The Vision statement. The AGM meeting is being held in March to share stories of people with learning disabilities.
Learning Disability Devon has been redone and made more up-to-date. Members of the Devon People First Friendship Group was presented with this to receive any feedback or comments on how it easy it was to use and if there was anything that could be changed to improve their experience on the webpage. Comments were overall very positive with good suggestions on how it can be improve.
Health and Social Care group has been extremely successful, members include people both Devon People First and Hikmat. Discussions have included things such as: the roles of Learning Disability Liaison Nurses, wording for a new Treatment Escalation Plan, update on Universal Credit roll out and members have contributed to reviewing and updating council care and health webpages.
Friendship Groups
Group is continuing to run 6 times each month with a healthy consistent number of members however the number of members have varied higher and lower over the stage of the past two and a half years; this has been a result of people engaging with other activities and work opportunities both paid and voluntary. The group give good peer support to each other. Members have been supported well enough to be involved with projects like The Southwest “Our say forum”, Learning Disability Partnership Board and it’s subgroups. Other topics that have been discussed with the Friendship Group and Big Community Catch Up include: mental health and wellbeing, hospital appointments, cost of living crisis, housing and transport.
Dimensions For Autism (DFA)
Some DFA members have been in acute hospitals and have been in touch with a Liaison Nurse about reasonable adjustments being denied in hospitals; lack of decision making for individuals when in hospital as a result the community is not getting the rights due to a lack of staffing. Information has been sent to Inclusion Gloucestershire on reasonable adjustments in the work area; more information continues to be shared between DFA and Inclusion Gloucestershire to work together to do joined up work.
Autism Involvement Group (AIG)
AIG members have been busy giving input on Living Well Strategy consultation. Continuous discussion of the importance of mental health and points have been raise on how it should be focused on preventing causes of problems instead of leaving it to late to the point of crisis. The high demand of assessments from the DANNA Team has cumulated a large waiting list, discussion has been done about appropriate training within DANNA and how it will be produced. Member scrutinised about Devon County Council (DCC) webpages and gave feedback on their functionality and content; for example mixed views on the function of Pinpoint.
Older People/Age UK Devon
Questionnaires were sent out to various groups and services; although the questionnaires didn’t have a high return rate they were able to highlight some key concerns from the reports including things such as: not much support given at diagnoses or no diagnoses, charities and voluntary groups are filling gaps through lack of provision provided, counselling and therapy would be very beneficial and older clients are unaware of the clear pathway for support due to Devon County Council’s online information can be confusing.
Hikmat and BAME involvement
Settlement projects are going well, lots of people starting to socialise, attending English classes, settling into school and moving in the correct direction. Physical activities have been started taking place that include swimming for women, badminton or basketball clubs for men have made a real difference and helping with their well being; majority of the activities are face to face.
Hikmat explained that there has been tension and frustration as a result of them being involved in over 100 questionnaires but have not been offered any access to the documents or policies which contains their personal data but also they are unable to show the feedback given to their service users.
Equality Reference Group (ERG)
The group is exploring home to school transport and DCC proposing changes in concessionary home to school transport systems. DCC want to have a service that can help the most people.
Safeguarding Community Reference Group
The group met last November and discussed how ethnicity data is being recorded in the safeguarding processes. A need for more cultural training as misunderstandings can lead to many problems, sometimes people report incidents of abuse to police unnecessarily.
Co-production Group
The group is meeting regularly, at least once a month to discuss on how they can continue to improve the group itself, discuss any upcoming co-production awareness sessions and also the co-production network where previous attendees of the co-production awareness sessions can come to discuss what work they have done in their role or teams and seek any advice if needed to help the process. The group have been looking for new members and have invited others to join through emails being sent out to all groups as they want full representations of different protected characteristics.
Other Living Options Engagement
Wanting to a run a focus group on Adult Social Care Reviews. Transportation was discussed for bus drivers to have awareness sessions.
Tandra Forster – Devon County Count Council’s Director of Integrated Adult Social Care
Tandra attended the pervious JEF and wanted to give an update on the work she has been doing within the council, this included updates on things such as: challenges of hospitals and the support in the discharge process, pressures of staff on stand by over Christmas, public consultation on the draft version of the Adult Social Care Vision and Strategies, assurance framework changes to be started in the spring and a new strategy is coming out for the Integrated Care System. A new Chief Executive has been appointed at the council who will be starting soon and has experience of social care, children services, co-production and engagement. There was time after the discussions for the members to ask Tandra any questions they may have.
DCC Senior Manager for Policy, Strategy, Management Information and Involvement: Adult Social Care Vision and 3 Strategies
Members were explained that is still time and the opportunity to feedback on the draft version of the Adult Social Care Vision and the 3 Strategies. Their is a remaining 7 weeks to give any comments as this will be the time limit before they have to be taken through the government process. A refresher presentation and update was given to the members about The Vision and strategies including why the council is updating them and what it offers to people. Time was given to members to feedback and give any comments at the end of the presentation.