This project supports voluntary and community organisations in Norfolk to make the changes needed to deliver personalised services and support people with personal budgets.

Introduction

Personalisation (or Self Directed Support as it is sometimes called) forms the cornerstone of the transformation of social care. Under personalisation, the social care system allows individuals to make choices about the services that they use, and take control of those choices, and the financial budgets allocated to meet their care needs. 

For voluntary organisations, personalisation brings opportunities and challenges.  You will need to review what and how you deliver services. You may have to redesign services to meet the needs of individual users, become used to being ‘commissioned’ by individuals rather than the local authority and work out the financial implications of individual contracts replacing block contracts.

The project aims to support your voluntary organisation by giving you current information about personalisation in Norfolk and by providing training and development opportunities so that you are well informed and have skills and tools to make decisions about your services.

Personalisation e-bulletin

To help you stay informed of developments in the world of personalisation, the project issues a regular Personalisation e-bulletin providing updates on developments in the personalisation agenda, local issues, useful resources and examples of good practice.

Personalisation Toolkit for Providers

The Project and Norfolk County Council Community Services (Adult Care) have produced a toolkit aimed at smaller voluntary organisations, designed to guide them through the fundamental steps to delivering personalised services and supporting people with personal budgets. The toolkit works best as an electronic document as it has many links to other sources of information and useful websites.

If you would like to receive a copy of the Personalisation Toolkit for Providers please email Jo Clapham at jo.clapham@voluntarynorfolk.org.uk

We are developing a range of bespoke services to support voluntary organisations with personalisation. If you would like to find out more please contact Jo Clapham, Personalisation Development Manager.

Frequently Asked Questions document

The Project has also been working with Community Services to develop a personal budget Frequently Asked Questions provider document. All of the questions in the FAQs have been asked by voluntary organisations, and the FAQs will be updated regularly with answers to new questions being raised.

You can download the FAQ provider document as a PDF.

Training sessions

The Project’s ‘Making it Happen’ Personalisation training programme has so far included sessions on:

• Responding to the challenges and opportunities of personalisation
• Developing personalised services
• Marketing and business skills for personalisation
• Governance for personalisation

The project conducted a survey of the training needs of voluntary organisations to ensure that we are focusing the training on the areas of personalisation that organisations most need.  The survey showed that the areas of personalisation where training is most needed are setting up contracts for individual contracts, marketing and using outcomes.

According to the survey 71% of respondents felt that that their awareness, skills and knowledge of personalisation was either “much better” or “a bit better” compared to a year ago, and 84% of respondents felt either ‘very positive’ or a ‘little bit positive’ about their organisation’s future under personalisation.

For further details and a booking form for the next round of sessions, go to: www.voluntarynorfolk.org.uk/events  

If you have any questions or concerns about personal budgets, the e-bulletin, FAQs, training or for more information about the toolkit contact: Jo Clapham, Personalisation Development Manager, jo.clapham@voluntarynorfolk.org.uk or 01603 883842.