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Spotlight on funding 

Delegates at the CdLS Conference at Chester and Stratford heard several speakers talk about the rights for adults with special needs to be more in control of their futures.

Now a new campaign is calling for the development of an enhanced version of Direct Payment (DP) systems based on the model known as individualised funding.

Individualised Funding (IF) promises to be especially helpful to people with learning difficulties, but could also make the direct payment option more attractive and accessible to other people.

Freedom

The group leading the campaign argues that, in addition, IF strengthens the freedom of recipients to plan their own lives and support requirements.

The campaign has been launched with a publication, Not Just About the Money: Reshaping social care for self-determination.

It argues that, in the existing process by which public funds are converted into individual supports, the main players have roles that are confused and riddled with conflict (a situation that will only be worsened by the UK policy emphasis on ‘partnership working’).

In particular, care management is supposed to be concerned with the needs of the individual, yet is carried out by people employed by the agency responsible for rationing funds.

The model of IF proposed in Not just about the Money replaces community care assessment with a system of open negotiation between the local council and the individual requiring money for supports, based on a plan that the individual has drawn up and costed.

IF also identifies two other roles: independent planning support, often known as service brokerage, and financial intermediaries, who help with the administration of funds.

In both cases, the paper emphasises, these are services to the individual, accountable to the individual, and only provided when, and as far as, the individual chooses.

Existing DP support schemes, of course, already address the need for these kinds of assistance, although there isn’t an exact correspondence.

The introduction of IF would emphasise their importance and clarify their role.

Around 50 IF programmes are already operating in North America and Australia. And while there are variations in the way the model has been implemented, the overall message from evaluations is extremely positive.

Welcome

The Department of Health has indicated that it would welcome such developments.

Not Just About the Money, by Steve Dowson, is jointly published by Community Living and Emprise International Training and Consultancy.

Downloadable versions of the paper, and news about related activities, are available at http://www.emprise-international.com/njam.htm