Hi I have just been sent this link and been really interested in reading what people having been writing about personalisation. JUst to say as a mother who is managing her son's personal budget which he has been receiving for the past four years. I would have to say without doubt it has improved his quality of life and health, he has a full social life mixing with both hius peers and his local community. He attends his local community Zumba group, line dancing group, Saturday night he goes to the Working mens club, he visits his sister who has him for the weekend, and gives us respite, we have just started utilising an agency that provides sleep overs so that he can stay in his own home, when me and my husband like to go away in our caravan and in the past he has had to miss his local groups, and he finds us boring. This went really well and we will be trying this again. We have managed his budget for four years no review and never a problem until this year when we received a letter saying we had misused his money and would have to repay it, having spent days, weeks on the phone trying to get answers, emails not responded to, telepone calls not responded to eventually having to put in a complaint and now being told we are OK we have done nothing wrong, that what was granted in his orginal plan is not accepable and we need a review. This started in July this year and today we are in December and as of yet we have no finalised care plan but have been reassured that we had not done anyting wrong. Today the Learning Disabilty Partnership Boad are meeting with Care management and hopefully we can address some of the probnlems that appear to not woking within the system of care management. At present until we have been given his care plan in writing we have been reluctant in spending his money as such at the present time much of what we were doing to improve his life and ours have been put on hold, thus affecting his quality of life thus he is already losing his confidence in accessing his local community. When the system is working well personal budgets can indeed make a big differnce to a persons life my son has been able to try new experiences and been given the opportunity to make chocies. Personalisation is about the person, about having choices, and being given the opportunity to trial new experiences. My son independence and confidence has flouirished by him having a personal budget. In his local community groups he is accepted, he goes to thier montly socail events and recently a weekend away with his group, that met up with like minded people interested in line dancing from all over the world, canada, denmark just to name a few, he had a lovely time. This is one aspect of where personalisation and personal budgets when done well can meet the goverments big society and building community capacity.
Keep going don't lose hope. Be there for the reviews and explain your complaint at the review. Make sure that this doesn't happen again by continually asking for a review.
My very best wishes for the outcome. And hope you and your sons Xmas goes well.
london21: Hi I have just been sent this link and been really interested in reading what people having been writing about personalisation. JUst to say as a mother who is managing her son's personal budget which he has been receiving for the past four years. I would have to say without doubt it has improved his quality of life and health, he has a full social life mixing with both hius peers and his local community. He attends his local community Zumba group, line dancing group, Saturday night he goes to the Working mens club, he visits his sister who has him for the weekend, and gives us respite, we have just started utilising an agency that provides sleep overs so that he can stay in his own home, when me and my husband like to go away in our caravan and in the past he has had to miss his local groups, and he finds us boring. This went really well and we will be trying this again. We have managed his budget for four years no review and never a problem until this year when we received a letter saying we had misused his money and would have to repay it, having spent days, weeks on the phone trying to get answers, emails not responded to, telepone calls not responded to eventually having to put in a complaint and now being told we are OK we have done nothing wrong, that what was granted in his orginal plan is not accepable and we need a review. This started in July this year and today we are in December and as of yet we have no finalised care plan but have been reassured that we had not done anyting wrong. Today the Learning Disabilty Partnership Boad are meeting with Care management and hopefully we can address some of the probnlems that appear to not woking within the system of care management. At present until we have been given his care plan in writing we have been reluctant in spending his money as such at the present time much of what we were doing to improve his life and ours have been put on hold, thus affecting his quality of life thus he is already losing his confidence in accessing his local community. When the system is working well personal budgets can indeed make a big differnce to a persons life my son has been able to try new experiences and been given the opportunity to make chocies. Personalisation is about the person, about having choices, and being given the opportunity to trial new experiences. My son independence and confidence has flouirished by him having a personal budget. In his local community groups he is accepted, he goes to thier montly socail events and recently a weekend away with his group, that met up with like minded people interested in line dancing from all over the world, canada, denmark just to name a few, he had a lovely time. This is one aspect of where personalisation and personal budgets when done well can meet the goverments big society and building community capacity.
I like your son have a PB and really understand where your'e coming from. PB has completely changed my life Keep fighting get the things changed NO WAY It took a long time me to get everthing contracted (by the way it should be his Support plan which talks about his wants and needs not a care plan which by definition is only about his personal care (know I sound pedantic and nitpicking but it really it's importent we get rid of this thing called a "care plan" I'm sure your son does not think when he is line dancing that he needs care?