IESE supports innovative Community Hub

Date: Monday 28/06/10

Improvement and Efficiency South East have supported West Berkshire Council, local community and voluntary groups and the private sector with the concept of a Community Hub to provide a one stop shop for people who need advocacy, support and information

The ‘drop in’ hub will help people navigate between statutory and third sector services and comes in response to an increase in the number of referrals to adult care services of vulnerable people with physical disabilities, learning disabilities or mental health problems in crisis.

It also aims to support large numbers of people with personalised budgets who find it difficult to purchase lower level support to help them to live successfully in their community.

Initial case studies suggest that with early support and intervention, vulnerable and at-risk people can manage independently.

Supporting public services
IESE works with 74 local authorities and nine fire authorities in the South East to help drive efficiencies and service improvements across the region. This includes exploring ways to lessen the predicted impacts of rising social care costs, building infrastructure to support different approaches to service delivery and encouraging preventative support programmes.

Under the IESE-funded scheme, West Berkshire mapped community services and invested time in developing relationships between the statutory social care services and the third sector i.e. voluntary and community organisations, charities and social enterprises.

Stakeholders speak
A stakeholder event in March 2010 created an opportunity for West Berkshire’s community providers and front line staff to exchange ideas and look at ways to improve services by intervening early with vulnerable people, particularly those who are hard to reach.

Providers felt that a community-based ‘drop in’ hub would help people to successfully navigate between statutory services like the Department for Work and Pensions and health services and third sector services such as Citizens’ Advice and Age Concern.

The Community Hub aims to ensure that all members of the community can easily access services and, by linking to a database of community volunteers, the Hub will provide practical support to people including voluntary sector support such as advocacy, debt advice or help with furnishing their homes.

By having an online presence, the Community Hub will signpost queries to the correct community resource and provide a much-needed service for vulnerable people living in isolated rural communities.

The Community Hub concept will build capacity within care management teams to meet the increased demands of an ageing population on workloads and generate savings in commissioning budgets.

Looking to the future
It also presents a vision of how councils and PCTs for example can work effectively with the voluntary and private sector to promote independence, through the creative use of pooled budgets and individual budgets.

For further details contact:
Jane Hurt
Project Manager
jane.hurt@southeastiep.gov.uk
07540 201409