By Linda Edwards
“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to
improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a
tiny ripple of hope... and crossing each other from a million different centres
of energy and daring those ripples build a current that can sweep down the
mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” Robert F. Kennedy
Past
My
adult daughter has a learning disability and is on the autistic spectrum. I am a family carer. I am a reasonable person. However, I am sure that the London Borough of
Barnet (LBB) Social Care and Health senior Managers and Directors would not
agree!
I
don’t want anything for my disabled daughter that she is not entitled to
receive or that other vulnerable people do not receive. I believe this to be fair and reasonable!
Having
challenged their shoddy commissioning and lack of monitoring of damaging and
inappropriate services for my disabled daughter, they continued to fund these
services and sign them off as “good value” for over 15 years. I believe this to be unfair, unreasonable
and just plain stupid!
They
doggedly refuted my formal complaint submitted 28th March 2008 and
wasted thousands of pounds of LBB and ratepayers money in defending the
complaint, allowing it to progress as far as the Ombudsman stage.
All
they had to do was become more competent in their monitoring and evaluating
process. This should undoubtedly have
led to the removal of the bullying service provider that was not providing the
service to which my disabled daughter was entitled to receive and which they
had irresponsibly commissioned.
My
daughter became emotionally unwell, struggling for many years because of this
inappropriate support, lack of management and staff being thrust on her that we
wouldn’t trust to take our dog for a walk!
They certainly knew very little about the needs of people on the autistic
spectrum. Their management were so
arrogant as to not want to learn from the Recommendations from the National
Autistic Society!
What did LBB Adult Social Care and Health learn from my complaint?
- They shortened the
complaints process, making it harder for family carers to have a successful
outcome.
- They learnt that
reporting and listening to lies (their response 4th July 2008
to my complaint) prevails and succeeds within the culture of LBB Adult
Social Care and Health.
- How to
best discourage paid and family carers from reporting complaints and
safeguarding issues.
- LBB Adult Social Care
and Health Senior Managers vindictive behaviour results in promotion.
What
they should have learnt from my complaint:
- Family Carers will
challenge their dogma, injustice, oppressive culture and resistance to
listen to vulnerable people and family carers.
- We will find
the energy and support to continue until there is a satisfactory
conclusion for our family member and the people we are supporting and
working with.
- We will do this
individually, supported by each other and through organisations and newly
formed groups such as “The Campaign Against Destruction of Disabled
Support Services” (CADDSS). For
further details, please email CADDSS1 @ gmail.com
Update, Celebration and Thanks
Many
of you have read my previous articles and I am thrilled to share with you that
there has been a ‘Eureka’ moment because of the change in my daughter’s Service
Provider.
I
would like to thank my daughter’s solicitor, Yvonne Hossacks without whom I
would still be asking for a meeting, which if agreed, would go nowhere because
rarely was anything from LBB Adult Social Services and Health Managers followed
up or actioned! There were so many times
over many years that I was disregarded but in her role as my daughter’s solicitor,
she achieved some considerable change for my daughter. Solicitors representing vulnerable people in
Adult Social Care and Health should not be necessary and I am a sure solicitor
who has a social conscience like Yvonne Hossacks would much prefer to be
unnecessary and have more profitable work.
Why is the culture of LBB Adult Social Care and Health so unfriendly to
working in partnership with family carers?
Thank
you to the Family Advocate who accompanied me to so many LBB meetings, even
though the meetings achieved nothing for my daughter. She left many meetings feeling frustrated and
upset and once remarked “I have been doing this job for over 30 years and
have seen no change in how they behave towards family carers!” However, it proved crucial that there was
a witness to the many broken promises and lack of action from LBB Adult Social
Care and Health Managers!
I
should also like to thank my daughter’s LBB Social Worker who has ‘listened’
to, ‘heard’ my daughter’s explicit needs, choices and decisions and checked out
that they were from her rather than from me as some LBB Managers have
suggested! In spite of her assessment of
my daughter’s needs July 2011, in August 2011 when she was on holiday, the LBB
In-House Learning Disabilities Services Manager overrode her assessment and
removed my daughter’s crucial night support.
This LBB social worker has supported the transition of the new service
provider and demonstrated her excitement at the recent amazing changes in my
daughter’s personal development. This
must make the role of a caring social worker all the more worthwhile and
satisfying.
My
sincere thanks and appreciation to this new Head of Integrated Learning
Disability Services who has been proactive in trying to heal the emotional
damage done to my daughter after the LBB Manager of the In-House Learning
Disability Services withdrew my daughter’s night support suddenly in August
2011. The outcome for her was…….. Guess
what? Promotion!
The
new Head of Integrated Learning Disability Services has authorised Direct
Payments for as long as my daughter needs night support and has also
demonstrated a desire to work in partnership with me as the family carer. Whilst I fully accept she doesn’t approve of
my ‘tone’ in correspondence, I hope she can try to understand that my daughter
and I have been on the receiving end of LBB’s Adult Social Care and Health’s
“oppression, injustice and resistance” for many, many years…..
It
will take a long healing process and conditions set by family and paid carers
before we can withdraw from our campaign to highlight the effects of the abuse
of power that prevails in LBB Adult Social Care and Health.
Thank
you too, to the new service provider who I cannot name just yet for fear that I
am ‘dreaming’ about the way in which the new service provider are working with
my daughter and me, (family carer) and that tomorrow I may wake up to another
nightmare!
Trusting
they are working in this way with everyone, these are some of the differences
between the new service provider culture and the previous service provider
bullies that LBB Adult Social Services and Health Director refused to remove
since her response to my complaint on 4th July 2008. The new service provider:
- Responds to my emails
- Responds to telephone
messages.
- Is proactive in planning
for my daughter’s future and greater independence
- Has not lied to me!
- Has been respectful of
my daughter’s needs.
- Whilst they have been
proactive in supporting my daughter’s needs, they have also reacted
positively to her decisions and choices and encouraged her rather than
attempted to control her.
- The new Service Provider
has been respectful of my own needs as a family carer (I am at last
beginning to plan my own life because my daughter is being supported
appropriately and I am no longer having to fight for my daughter’s support
to be as it should be!) For
example, on one occasion, when I became ‘panicky’ because of the many
years of the previous staff being late, their response was “you’re allowed
to panic, too!” There was no contempt or scorn, as I have been so used to
in the past.
- They have demonstrated
respect, civility and understanding of everyone’s needs.
- They have not blamed me
if my daughter has made a decision that is opposed to their own view.
Of
course, with all the above, the new service provider has higher expectations to
meet and further to fall than the previous service provider bullies, but we are
all willing to take this risk!
When
I thank them, they respond, “We are only doing our job!” Why didn’t LBB Adult Social Care and Health
Managers and Director insist that the previous service provider bullies did
their job?
With
my daughter’s now superb service,
why am I still campaigning about the past?
- My daughter will never get the wasted
years back that LBB Adult Social Care and Health robbed her of by
rebutting my formal complaint.
- She will not recover
from the emotional damage done to her because LBB ignored the NAS
Recommendations and my ‘expert’ knowledge and experience as a family carer
- I was made unwell on
many, many occasions. This still
affects my work and my life.
- LBB Adult Social Care
and Health Directors and Managers have never acknowledged their
responsibility for our many years of angst caused by them.
- We have uncovered many
similar issues that are being ‘swept under the constantly expanding LBB
Social Care and Health carpet’
- In spite of many issues
of abuse, safeguarding, lies and rudeness reported to LBB Senior Managers
and Director of Adult Social Care and Health, they have refused to remove
the previous bullying service providers from the list for other LBB
vulnerable people. This is outrageous!
- A written
acknowledgement statement and apology needs to be forthcoming.
- A commitment for change
needs to be put into place and monitored by independent lay leaders,
including family carers.
- £16,000 is owed to my
daughter, which LBB promised to ensure was returned to her. This was never actioned and I have
always been too exhausted and weary in fighting to ensure my daughter was
safe and had the necessary support to worry about her money.
Present
Why
am I connecting my daughter’s past trauma caused by LBB Adult Social Care and
Health senior management to LBB Cabinet Resources Committee Meeting Monday 16th
January 2012 to finalise the handing over of Learning Disabilities Services to
the new Local Authority Trading Company?
There are a few reasons for this connection and my continuing campaign:
- Cllr
Rajput, Cabinet Member for Adults fervently believes that LBB Adult Social
Care is providing a high quality of service to vulnerable people and their
family carers. The problem is that
whilst he may be taking note of carer’s surveys etc, he appears to be
listening too much to the same senior managers and directors who have
behaved so unprofessionally!
- Many
other vulnerable people are receiving a similar lack of support and
respect and suffer from the same lack of partnership.
- One of
the people who asked questions at the Cabinet Resources Committee Meeting,
asked about previous Safeguarding issues that had not been dealt with
adequately when reported to LBB Adult Social Services and Health senior
management.
Immediately
after the Cabinet Resources Meeting on Monday 16th January, the
Director of Adult Social Care and Health rushed out of the meeting to approach
the person who had asked the Safeguarding questions. She informed us that it was not appropriate
to bring Safeguarding issues to this public meeting (no personal confidential
information had been divulged). She also
said that had these Safeguarding issues been brought to her privately, she
would, as she always does, have dealt with them immediately… watch this space
for update!
- Councillor
Brian Coleman, (together with his dear mother), who both give considerable
service to the community, came downstairs to speak to the people who had
asked Safeguarding questions at the Cabinet Resources Committee
Meeting. Coincidentally, he also
advised them that this meeting was not an appropriate place to ask
Safeguarding questions.
- The Director of Adult Social
Care and Health had been responsible for responding to my complaint (4th
July 2008). I have continued to
question LBB why what is written in glossy brochures and spoken in
meetings and public conferences are not being put into practice.
Because
of my behaviour in this way, the Director has refused to allow me to be a
member of the Learning Disability Partnership Board. This is in spite of an “excellent
interview” and “vast knowledge and experience” as reported by the
people who interviewed me for the position of being a member!
This decision is spiteful and undemocratic and
should have been challenged by Cllr Rajput – please look forward to my letter
enclosing the communications and notes of meetings regarding my exclusion.
- The Manager of Barnet
Homes and the Director of Adult Social Care
and Health spoke at the Cabinet Resources Committee Meeting about LBB
having extensive carer involvement.
I believe this to be true.
However, is this involvement only with family carers who do not
complain and challenge injustice?
Once they complain about a service for their family member, senior
management abuse their power and authority by discriminating and excluding
them!
The
French sculptor Auguste Rodin said “Nothing is a waste of time if you use
the experience widely”
So how have I used “the
experience widely”? Whilst LBB Adult
Social Care and Health were actively rebutting my complaint and allowing all my
daughter’s problems to continue, little did I know that in another part of
Barnet were Safeguarding issues being reported to the very same people who were
disregarding the issues that I had complained about on behalf of my
daughter! Shame on all the people who
knew about this and did nothing!
Future
Please
watch this space for further celebrations of good practice from my daughter’s
new service provider. I am optimistic
and hopeful that the ‘honeymoon period’ of the first six months will continue
because of the management of her service.
Recommendations
for LBB Adult Social Care and Health,
which I am so sure, will be disregarded:
- Adhere in practice to
Government policies and strategies, instead of merely speaking and writing
about them.
- Monitor and evaluate
outcomes!
- Adhere in practice to
their own LBB policies and strategies, instead of continually speaking and
writing about them.
- Monitor and evaluate
outcomes!
- Whistleblowers should be
embraced and helped to feel safe, as they are able to see what Managers
and Directors don’t have the opportunity to see. Safeguarding training and
administration is costing LBB a great deal of money. Therefore, as soon as whistle blowers
have the courage to bring issues of abuse to the notice of managers,
considerable energy and resources has been put into cover up, thus allowing
the abuse to continue. This is unforgivable,
unacceptable and must be reversed immediately!
- The Director of Adult
Social Services and Health ignored my three communications for a meeting
(early 2011) so that I could describe how her response in refusing to
remove the ‘cowboy’ service provider had put my disabled daughter at risk
and damaged her and me, as a family carer.
Instead, she passed my request to her senior manager to action as a
complaint, when it clearly was not a complaint! Once again, wasting valuable resources
and money in investigating a complaint that hadn’t been made rather than
agree to meet with me to hear the outcome of not removing the bullying
service provider. They must be made
accountable for the money and resources they waste!
- Some people are not
suited to working with vulnerable people.
The odd day training cannot break down a culture of bad practice
that has been in place for many years, especially if Management endorses
this practice. LBB need to be less
concerned with protecting staff and themselves and more concerned with the
rights of vulnerable people according to the Seven Key Outcomes for Social
Social Care Service Users.
“The
time is always right to do what is right” Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Linda Edwards is a carer in Barnet. Guest blogs are always welcome at the Barnet Eye
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