This event, held on June 23rd 2009, was very well attended and enthusiastically embraced. There were a number of excellent speakers delivering relevant and very interesting presentations.
The event was chaired by Mike Lauerman, Skills for Care, and the speakers included:
David Behan, the Department of Health's Director General of Social Care, Local Government and Care Partnerships.
Margaret Whellans, Group Director for Community Based Services at Gateshead Council.
Margaret Monk, Skills for Care North East Regional Advisory Group.
Arepresentative from Adult & Community Services at Hartlepool Borough Council.
The event was also used as the launch of the document "Developing an Adult Social Care Workforce Strategy for the North East: A Vision and First Steps Forward"
The Executive Summary of the above document said:
"There is widespread agreement that adult social care is in the throes of major change. In December 2007 the Government, in partnership with a wide range of other interested parties, published the 'Putting People First' (PPF) concordat setting out a 'new vision' for adult social care. The central idea of Putting People First is 'personalisation'. Personalisation is about enabling people, even those disabled or disadvantaged, to participate as citizens in society and take as much control as possible over their own lives. It means giving people who use services the power to choose the services they want, being able to take more responsibility for their health and their lives, and take a more active role in managing their own care if this is what they want. This will only be achieved by significant changes to the social care workforce. This includes not just development of new roles but also major cultural change: changing the attitudes, behaviours and skill base of all people working in health and social care.
Reflecting the importance of workforce development and planning to this agenda the North East Region of the Association of Adult Social Services (ADASS) and the North East Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership (RIEP) agreed to develop a strategy for the development of the adult social care (ASC) workforce in the region. They commissioned independent consultants, Peter Fletcher Associates and BV Hudson Consulting, to undertake the work and produce this report. In the course of their work the consultants talked to over 140 people including: Directors of Adult Social Services, Skills for Care and people from a range of organisations including local authorities, independent sector providers, voluntary sector organisations, the NHS, training providers and commissioners and service users and carers.”
Regional Workforce Strategy: Click Here
