Outcomes of a Review of Prevention and Early Support Services for Adults Consultation

We asked

We asked for your views on the outcomes of a review of prevention and early support service for adults. We wanted to know what residents and interested parties thought of our proposals on the future provision of the following services:

• Support Planning and Brokerage (delivered by Inclusion Barnet)
• Wellbeing Services (delivered by Chinese Mental Health Association)
• Mental health project (delivered by Barnet Asian Women’s Association)
• Community Arts Project (delivered by Community Focus)

The consultation ran from the 28 November 2016 – 10 January 2017 with an online questionnaire (anonymous responses) being available during this period on the council’s Engage Barnet website available to all stakeholders. A consultation document was available as well as an easy read version. Alternative formats were available on request. The council promoted the consultation via a range of channels including letters and mailing out consultation packs, emails, phone calls, a press release and posters are the service locations. Service users and their carers and families were offered the opportunity to attend a face-to-face group discussion or 1-2-1 face-to-face or telephone conversations to provide feedback. Language interpretation was available where this was required or requested.

You said

In total 204 responses were received throughout the duration of the consultation.

Residents raised a number of concerns about the impact of the proposals on people accessing support such as the ability of adult social care to respond adequately to need, the cultural appropriateness of alternative provision, accessibility of alternative provision and concerns about the financial implications for individuals.

Please read the (External link)full consultation report(External link) for further information.

The council has recently undertaken a large scale piece of work to change social care practice to a strengths based model for assessments and reviews. This change will help to make sure that we work with clients to help them achieve their aspirations.

We allocated funding to support the transition of service users to new provision. Comments received during the consultation shaped the allocation and use of this transition funding to ensure that alternative provision is suitable for people from the Chinese community.

We have been supporting organisations affected by the proposals to develop their service models.

We have worked with providers to ensure that, where necessary, service users are able to safely transition to alternative provision. We have worked with Chinese Mental Health Association and Barnet Asian Women’s Association to ensure residents have transitioned to the Wellbeing Hub which has included service and staff development. We will continue to monitor uptake of alternative provision.