This document discusses strategies for improving engagement between local government and residents regarding care and support services. It outlines several key principles for making engagement real, including co-production and ensuring residents receive complete and timely information. The goals are to promote independence, give residents control over their care, and ensure high quality support. Dudley Borough Council has taken steps like mapping participant demographics and addressing gaps, treating every public interaction as an opportunity for engagement. The council also works to stimulate the local market to better meet community needs. The overall vision is for residents to feel supported and in control of their care.

1. Making Engagement Real
Great British Care Show
Sixways Stadium 1.5.13
Andrea Pope Smith- Director of Adult, Community and Housing Services
Dudley MBC
“I have good support but not until I
hit rock bottom, its getting to the
‘good stuff’, it is out there but it is
about getting to it in the first place”.
Views of a West Midlands
Resident 2012

2. Strategic Context
Cornerstones of Making it
Real and personalisation
are
• Co-production or put
more simply “working
together”
• Hearing not just
listening
Complete, accurate and
timely information is vital
for people to make
informed decisions about
themselves and on behalf
of others

3. People who use
services and carer
forum
Heathwatch Voluntary
Sector and
ULOs
Other
involvement
networks e.g.
People’s
Parliament
Commercial
Sector
Providers of
Care and
Support
Means to Engage.....

4. Making It Real
• Tells us what the world
would look like if care and
support was fully
Personalised.
• Co-produced by people
who use care and support
services
• Contains 31 “I statements”
(I would experience....) www.thinklocalactpersonal.org.uk

5. The Care and Support White Paper
Vision
 To promote people’s
independence and
wellbeing by enabling
them to prevent and
postpone the need for
care and support.
 To transform people’s
experience of care and
support, putting them in
control and ensuring that
services respond to what
they want.
This means that, in the future, we
expect people will be able to say:
1. “I am supported to maintain my
independence for as long as possible”
2. “I understand how care and support works,
and what my entitlements are”
3. “I am happy with the quality of my care and support”
4. “I know that the person giving me care and
support will treat me with dignity and respect”
5. “I am in control of my care and support”

6. People who use
services and carer
forum
Information
and advice
Active and
Supportive
Community
My Support
My Money
Workforce
Implementation Group
Programme Board
Links to Making It Real

7. Production of the Local Account
Our Local Account asked four questions:
1.What has worked well about your care
and support in the last year?
2. What has not worked so well?
3. What could you or others do to make your
life better?
4. What does having a good quality of life mean
to you?

8. You say, we do. “We have had to actively seek
out information, we are trying to
cope with a difficult situation on
a daily basis. The Council needs
to be more pro-active.”We are sorry to hear this. Over the
next 12 months we will improve the
quality of information and support
that we provide via our
access team and other public access
points including Healthwatch “My personal budget has taken a
long time to approve. It doesn’t
allow any time to support me
with shopping or voluntary
work which is important to me.”We will review our processes to
ensure individual priorities are
responded to. We will also explore
wider resources in the community to
increase the range of choice available

9. Increasing Engagement
We will “Map” participants
• Geographically
• By Gender
• By Age
• By Disability
• By Ethnicity etc. etc.
To ensure that the people with whom
we engage with make up a truly representative
sample of the boroughs population
We have gaps in particular “communities” we will proactively recruit people
from these “communities”
Every intervention with a member of the public is
an opportunity to promote engagement

10. Stimulating the Marketplace
Market
intelligence
Market
structuring
Market
intervention
10
The development of a common
and shared perspective of supply and
demand, including the Engagement
Bank, Local Account and Provider
Engagement leading
to evidenced, published, market
position statements
for a given market.
The activities designed to give the market shape and
structure, where commissioner behaviour is visible and the outcomes they
are trying to achieve agreed, or at least accepted.
The interventions commissioners
make in order to deliver the kind
of market believed to be
necessary for any
given community.

11. “The Council bent over backwards
to help me to help myself. I am
benefitting from activities I didn’t
know existed. I am an important
member of my Community again.”

12. To find out more about Making It Real in
Dudley and to access these slides please
click on http://makingitrealindudley.org
Thanks for listening.