In his first blog as Think Local Act Personal Director, Dr Sam Bennett sets out what lies ahead for the Partnership and transforming care and support in 2013.
“For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.” John F. Kennedy
Two weeks into a new job is always an interesting time. Just long enough to start feeling comfortable in your new surroundings and to have developed a “feel” for the role. Not quite long enough to have met everyone and to understand their viewpoint. Not at all long enough to have taken the key decisions that will shape the year ahead.
Except that in this instance, it has felt rather like accelerated learning. I already know the members of our small, core team well and understand how incredibly lucky I am to have such inspiring and talented colleagues. I have previously worked with a number of the National Co-production Advisory Group, the fantastic people who guide and shape our work through their own lived experience. And I have had an early opportunity to think widely and critically about TLAP’s future with the members of our dedicated Board. Add to this my excitement at working towards a vision I feel passionate about and have been involved with in one way or another for the best part of a decade, and you can imagine why I already feel my feet are well and truly under the table!
One thing that is already clear is that 2013 will be a hugely challenging year for social care and a pivotal one for TLAP. The partnership agreement that marked our launch is only two years old, but reflecting on it last week, it was startling just how much has happened in this short time.
We have had a new care and support White Paper, which helpfully reconfirmed the policy commitment to personalisation and community-based support (including identifying TLAP as a key delivery partner!). There is a draft care and support bill that will be incredibly important for the sector as it works its way through the pre-legislative scrutiny phase and answers relating to future funding are even more critical in their absence now than two years ago. We have witnessed a scaling back of regulation and a new emphasis on sector-led improvement. There have been high profile failures in the social care market with Southern Cross and the appalling scandal at Winterbourne View both driving further important changes. There is the ongoing, radical reform of the NHS and the emergence of Health and Wellbeing Boards as the key mechanism for improving outcomes across the system, and all of this in the context of the deepest budget cuts in public services in a generation.
For these and many more reasons, it was important for the TLAP Board to take stock and look forward to 2013 with a critical eye. If the Partnership is to remain energising and enabling, we owe it to our Partners to reassess our objectives and understand how to make the greatest impact from our contribution.
We did this last week by looking in detail at our vision set out in the Partnership agreement and further described in Making it Real. We then thought together about our priorities and ways we can most effectively work towards them. While this is the start of a process, rather than a completed task, I thought I’d share three of my own reflections at this early stage because some important things were immediately apparent:
1. The vision of personalisation and community-based support is as vital now as it has ever been. While the landscape continues to change, this unifying goal is worth striving for and TLAP can play an important role in charting progress, promoting authenticity and integrity and sharing learning about what works in transforming care and support in challenging times. Making it Real in particular will continue to be a high priority for us in 2013.
2. Any organisation with the word “local” in its title must work doubly hard to ensure there is a tangible impact for people and communities from our work. While this is challenging within our limited resources, we will be working on several fronts in 2013 to strengthen our influence and usefulness beyond the national sphere. If the success of several regional TLAP programmes delivered by our Partners in 2012 is anything to go by, this will be a space worth watching over the coming months.
3. Co-production is our strength and will remain integral to our work, both through the example we set to others and in the delivery of our programme. Working with the Board last week suggests some important new developments here, with aspirations to model co-production through Health and Wellbeing Boards and a renewed commitment to Building Community Capacity planned for 2013. It is abundantly clear that the more we succeed in making co-production real in local areas, the better chance we have in our other endeavours.
Finally, I want to share my admiration and the inspiration I draw from the organisation I have joined. TLAP exists only through the commitment, goodwill and human capital of its many Partners – measured in the many hours and the generous support they each bring. Our Partners encompass a variety of different perspectives that are perhaps not always the most obvious bedfellows. Yet there are clear values and a genuine drive that we all share – the drive to have a positive impact on the lives of people with care and support needs, their carers and families.
In our Board meeting last week we worked in pairs to develop an “elevator pitch” for TLAP, a short and punchy sound bite that describes what we stand for and do. Here are my two favourites:
“We are a group of people and organisations who are making choice, control and active citizenship real, so that people with care and support needs have good support and good lives.”
“We are a voluntary partnership which includes everyone and is like a movement. It starts and ends with me as an individual, in the place I live, with the people I love, with the things I need and the life I want to achieve.”
These encapsulate why I can think of no better place to be to support the next crucial phase of social care transformation, and why I feel sure that together we will not miss the future, but will do everything we can to shape it for the better.
http://www.thinklocalactpersonal.org.uk/Blog/SamBennett/
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Suzan Collins 