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This video may cheer you up if you have a spare few minutes - it collects some short clips of carers, parents of disabled children and service users talking about things they have achieved in their communities off the back of In Control Partners in Policymaking courses. These provide training in support planning, influencing policy and organising support groups for users and carers locally, among other things.

Happy New Year! I returned to work today to see social care at the top of the news headlines.

Social care's great and good have written an open letter to the prime minister (in the Telegraph) urging that he and his fellow party leaders deliver on social care funding reform this year to put an end to indignity and isolation for older people, dependence for disabled people and the denial of life opportunities for carers.

It's great to see social care on the front pages and at the top of news bulletins, and you cannot fault the timing: this is, of course, the year in which the government publishes a White Paper setting out how it plans to reform social care, including its funding. Moreover, cross-party talks are due to start.

Before Christmas, we predicted that the government would not deliver on social care funding reform, specifically that it would not implement the proposals of the Dilnot commission to put a £35,000 cap on lifetime care costs for all because of the £1.7bn bill.

An optimist might argue that we made the wrong call, and that the festive period showed that both government and opposition were up for making social care funding reform work.

On this line, Labour has shown how much of a priority it puts on social care by putting out research over Christmas showing how much charges for home care and other community services had risen in the past couple of years (6% for home care). Releasing the research, shadow minister for care and older people Liz Kendall urged Cameron to engage in serious cross-party talks on reform. The positive narrative would also point to action from government in the shape of a £170m injection of cash into social care services for people discharged from hospital to manage winter pressures over the coming months.

This money - one-tenth of the cost of Dilnot - was found from Department of Health savings but meeting the full cost of Dilnot is a call that only the Treasury (and Number 10) can make. Moreover, whatever the pros and cons of the Dilnot package it doesn't, in itself, purport to solve all or most of the problems outlined in today's letter to Cameron.

This is because Dilnot is about expanding the existing publicly-funded social care system to cover self-funders (who would benefit from the cap); it is not about filling the funding gap in the existing system (put at £2bn to £4bn), which manifests itself in rising charges and eligibility criteria, squeezes on providers and inadequate quality.

This £4bn-6bn black hole (Dilnot plus funding gap) is not the whole story. As the government, councils and the sector know, the way social care operates needs fundamental reform  through better integration with health and housing, more personalisation (in the widest sense) and more intelligent commissioning. This should generate efficiencies that would reduce the Dilnot plus funding gap black hole from £4-6bn a year to something less than this.

However, I very much doubt that even the reduced figure would be something the Treasury would stomach, particularly in the current economic climate.

That is why I remain a pessimist - though I would be beyond delighted to be proved wrong.

Carers today will debate with care services minister Paul Burstow and minister for disability and carers benefits Maria Miller to look at the challenges carers are up against in the face of welfare reform.

At the National Carers Summit in London today, 250 carers will be present and others will join the debate online.

In 2010, spending on care fell by £1.3bn, according to carers organisation Carers UK. Carers UK is seeking assurances from the ministers that carers will not be left worse off as a result of the welfare reforms, including the £55.55 per week carers allowance.

Carers UK chief executive Imelda Redmond said: "Government must understand that cutting support to carers is not only a false economy, it is also not morally just when so many have given up work, health and contact with friends and family to care for relatives and friends who have become ill and disabled."

There's a sad story from Oxford about a bed-ridden 94-year-old woman who died after her daughter and only carer had a seizure and died.

Neither used social services and both appear from the story to have been well-known within the community so a key message from the local carers group is the need for carers to take a break.

This was recognised by the Princess Royal Trust for Carers who only recently said social workers needed more knowledge of older carers needs, particularly respite care.

As we all know the Department of Health is not always famed for its use of accessible language and it's met expectations with its consultation document "Caring for our future".

This is the engagement document launched by the government to inform its future social care white paper, in which it asked for the sector's views.

However as one of our forum members has pointed out, the language is hardly friendly for front-line workers.

Big Red Dog says: "I've been trying to think of a way to describe it and my addled brain keeps producing the word 'gobble'. The language isn't exactly obtuse but the layout isn't user-friendly either. What do you think? Is this really an accessible document for front line workers, carers and service users?"

Her four-point plan for improvements is this:

1) Less jargon: Integrated Services and Practice-based Evidence are not phrases I hear workers, carers, and service users using (although personalisation seems to have filtered down now). This does not mean that they would not understand the concept if described another way, eg. How could carers, GPs and District Nurses work better together? Give examples of when xyz has happened.

2) Ask the contributor directly: What, if any, barriers to integration  should be removed, and how can we incentivise better integration of service at all levels? (3d) should read something like, Have you ever experienced any problems trying to get social workers, nurses, carers etc to work together? Why do you think it was difficult to get them to work together?

3) Ask one question at a time. Question, space for answer, question, space for answer. Six vague questions followed by a blank space looks really uninviting. You may as well put: Public spending should be focused on prevention, not intervention. Discuss. (1000 words, marks will be lost for grammar and spelling mistakes).

4) Ask open questions. None of the questions under section four (prevention) invite any ideas for preventative action. Our ideas might not be particularly sophisticated, but I reckon service users, carers and workers could point out some things that would have managers kicking themselves.

I presume the government does want to hear the voice of the frontline professional, but you'd be hard-pushed to believe it.

What do you think? Have your say on CareSpace

Seven principles need to be understood in order to create stronger and more inclusive communities, according to a new report launched today by NAAPS and others.

Creating stronger and more inclusive communities which value everyone's right to contribute, by consultant John Gillespie, says:

1. Community development needs to start from how people themselves define their situation and aspirations.
2. Communities are stronger where people who use services are helped to find good ways of making a valued local contribution, not just seen as in need.
3. Most support is delivered by families and social networks: services must work in partnership with those whose contribution is unpaid.
4. The personalisation of public services marks a genuine change when it represents a change in culture, aspirations and choice of providers.
5. To live fully, we all need to be able to make informed choices and to take risks.
6. Public sector contributions are more cost-effective when they look across all local assets and needs, not just at those assessed as 'most needy'.
7. Micro-scale enterprises and interventions can be a powerful vehicle for mobilising new contributions.

Read Alex Fox's blog and Community Care column.

Community Care has just launched a website for domiciliary and residential care workers. The idea of You Care is to help promote good practice across the sector and to raise its profile.
I've already been out and about meeting and speaking with care home managers and domiciliary care workers to get a feel for the issues and it's clear to me already that there's a lot of fantastic work being done in a very pressured funding climate.

Use it and enjoy it.

 

Interesting account of the life of a carer and the wife he cares for (following a brain injury) in the July edition of Rostrum, BASW Scotland's magazine.
Crawford and Elizabeth's story is told by David McKendrick, lecturer in social work at Glasgow Caledonian University, and is basically a guide for social workers to what carers' lives are like.

Here's a passage:

Before Elizabeth's accident Crawford had never cared for anyone, least of all someone with a brain injury, so he has had to learn. This has often been by trial and error. Crawford has made mistakes and each mistake has been costly, resulting in either his or Elizabeth's distress - or both.

Crawford's learning has been unsupported with little help. There have been no university tutors, practice educators, senior carers or colleagues to learn from. There has been no safe learning environment and no boundaries. Elizabeth's personality can change seemingly without warning. But Crawford has become expert at reading the signs - he has to be.

Recently Crawford was visited by a social worker who was completing an assessment. Like all social workers he had a deadline, he had a caseload, he had to complete all the relevant paperwork and had to fill in all the computer screens. Crawford went out to make him a cup of coffee and on his return the social worker was asking Elizabeth how she would feel about someone coming in to help care for her.

Elizabeth became angry. This can happen and when it does Elizabeth can shout and swear or even become aggressive. Crawford knows this, he is the expert. If you read his diaries or ask him to share his expertise he will tell you. Crawford used all of his patience to explain to the social worker that working with Elizabeth requires skill and tact. Elizabeth does not understand the concept of a deadline, or of a report or the need to have your case notes updated.