People with learning disabilities
employing their own care workers:
implications for professional practice
Jill Manthorpe
Jill.manthorpe@kcl.ac.uk
The future?
The Nightmare (Fuseli)
2-Jul-16
The Golden Age (Cortona)
2
The (quiet) transformation of adult
social care
‘Councils should provide personal
budgets for everyone eligible for
ongoing social care , preferably as
a direct payment, by April 2013.’
– Department of Health ‘Vision for
Adult Social Care’, 2010, para 4.49
= Increases in number of people
directly employed by people using
services and carers
– Paid workforce may include family
members/adult fostering/shared lives
2-Jul-16
3
Range of policy and practice
challenges (parked)
• How to allocate fewer
resources fairly – use of
outcomes
• Monitoring and review –
light touch?
• Decisions about buildings
based services –
especially day care
centres
• Whole context of reduced
public expenditure
2-Jul-16
4
DP ~ IB ~ PB = SDS ~ ISF ~ PB ~ DP
Nationally 52.8% of
eligible adults are using
personal budgets to
arrange their care and
support, = increase of
almost 40% on the
previous year (June
2012)
So you want to be the employer?
• Range of support from
LA or ULO or others
• Benefits
• Role change
• Being the ‘boss’
• Pitfalls and risks
• Taking on and letting go
So your mum wants to be the
employer?
• Many carers act as
care/care managers
• Some carers receive
indirect DP (suitable
people)
• Support planning and
planning their support
• Another form of care
work but outcomes
good
So you want to be a directly employer
care worker?
•
•
•
•
Terms and conditions
Friend or employee
Managing relationships
Stepping stone or
career?
• Many employers?
• Oversight
• Support
Are people with LD different?
Yes, but only to a limited extent
…
 Huge range and scale of needs
 Reliance on family/parents
 Cumulative impact of life
events
 Multi-morbidity
 Citizenship? … been there …
 Managing the money
(‘burden’)
 Higher average budgets...
Keen on choice, control …
Implications for professionals
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Being PB literate
Knowing duty of care
Changing landscape
Relationship with other
funding streams
Monitoring & review
Creativity
Risk work
Safety nets