Direct funding and older people: why are we still talking about choice?

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Francesca Pozzoli considers a qualitative metasynthesis of directly funded home-care programmes for older people and the concept of ‘choice’.

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From charity to social enterprise: a case study highlights challenges in adopting self-directed support policy

What are the impacts when a third-sector organisation providing social care services moves toward an open and competitive market?

Jenny Fisher considers the perspectives of staff, managers and service users of a Scottish social care charitable organisation for children with complex needs, which faces funding and organisational change, brought about by self-directed support legislation.

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Adult social care personal budgets: the complexity of control

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In our second blog exploring research on personal budgets, Mike Clark dissects the biggest national survey of social care personal budget users and finds that a seemingly simple policy idea is complex in its operation and discovers some ideas about organising this complexity to meet individual needs and improve outcomes.

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Is self-directed support delivering personal budgets?

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In his very first blog for the Social Care Elf, Martin Stevens of King’s College London and chair of the Social Services Research Group, takes a critical look at some of the research and debate around self-directed support and personal budgets in adult social care.

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Overcoming the barriers to self directed support for people with learning disabilities

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Self-directed support is described by InControl  as an approach to social care which gives people optimum choice and control over their support arrangements. People with social care needs are offered funding to organise their own support, rather than being offered a directly provided service. There is now a clear policy direction in England and Scotland [read the full story…]

Scoping Review finds insufficient evidence on impact of personalisation in lives of people with learning disabilities

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Background Personalisation at its simplest is about starting with one person at the centre of any process concerned with responding to social care (and increasingly, health care) needs. SCIE have suggested that this will require ‘significant transformation’ of adult social care services, structures and processes, with implications for the role of social workers. The researchers [read the full story…]

New employment relationships between with learning disabilities and their paid supporters still to be explored in the literature

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Modernisation of social care and the move towards personalisation have opened up opportunities for people with learning disabilities to take control of their supports through using individual budgets to employ supports. This study set out to look at the impact of this policy change on people with learning disabilities and their families employing their own [read the full story…]