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At last summer's Community Care Live, social care minister Stephen Ladyman introduced his vision for adult social care. It should be, he said, one "that puts the person needing care at its centre É(and) promotes inclusion and diversity and supports people in their choices and aspirations". And since then he has made no bones that "direct payments can be a big part of achieving my vision."

Direct payments were introduced under the Community Care (Direct Payments) Act 1996. Take-up proved slow. But two government actions have begun to change that. First, from April 2003 councils had a duty to make (not just offer) direct payments where individuals consent to and are able to manage them with or without assistance. And, second, the number of "adults and older people receiving direct payments per 100,000 of the population" has become a new performance indicator (AO/C51).

So councils have been pushed into seeking to communicate the benefits of direct payments. And one council has seemingly cracked it. The information video produced by the London Borough of Enfield won this year's Association of Social Care Communicators and Community Care's top social care communication award. And the judges who described it as "an outstanding piece of work" commended the campaign to other local authorities to follow.

"The idea was to give people a better idea of what direct payments are all about," says Enfield communication officer for social services Emily Sault. "We had previously done a video for the deaf using subtitles and this proved a good way of communicating with the deaf community and with older people and ethnic communities as well."

Sault recruited service user and carer volunteers to appear in the video who were either on or about to join the direct payments scheme. Made by the production company Remark!, the video includes subtitles and a British Sign Language signer throughout.

It formed part of the council's direct payments material produced in partnership with local voluntary organisation Enfield Disability Action.

Drawing from people's experiences provides powerful arguments. In the video a woman who is caring for her mother who has dementia is about to start on the scheme: "I like to be at church by 9am but the carers are always late. It unbalances my day and creates a huge difficulty for me. The direct payments scheme is going to give me good value and a change to my lifestyle. I'm looking forward to it."

A parent of a young man with learning difficulties understands what might put people off but assures them: "Whatever worries or fears you have - put them aside and try it out because the benefits are great."


Equally convincing is the man with a physical disability who is on the scheme: "I'm more confident; I'm confident to employ my own carers and I'm using my existing abilities to improve my own life."

The video, which will be available as a DVD, cost about £14,000 to make. Five hundred videos were made on the first run. But numbers are dwindling:"They don't always come back," smiles Sault. However, it can also be downloaded from the council's website (www.enfield.gov.uk/council/direpay. htm) which means that it can be monitored. "We had over 100 hits a month at the start but this has now doubled," she says.

Anecdotally the feedback has also been good. "Enfield Disability Action say how useful it is and how people comment that it gives them much more confidence that they can do it. The whole idea was to give direct payments a down-to-earth approach, with people in their actual environments," says Sault.

Lessons Learned   

• If you want to communicate effectively with a particular community, the best way is to use people from that community.  
• Be flexible with any scripts you might use. "Our script was in sections: an introduction; finances; support; and other information. Although staff stuck to the script the others taking part just said what they wanted - which it made it more natural," says Sault.