Compulsory registration for entire social care workforce.
Northern Ireland could become the first UK country to introduce compulsory registration for its entire social care workforce.
The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety has launched a consultation, which could extend compulsory registration, which currently applies only to social workers and social work students, to a further 23,000 social care workers.
‘Inequity between registered and unregistered’
“Without compulsion to register, full take up by social care workers will not be achieved within an acceptable timeframe. The current position creates an inequity between those who are registered and those who are not,” said the consultation paper.
The proposal sets out a timetable for when the remaining groups of social care workers need to be registered with the Northern Ireland Social Care Council, starting with residential child care staff and managers of day centres by July 2010.
This would be followed a year later by domiciliary managers and residential care workers, social work assistants, drivers, rehabiliation officers, residential family centre workers and personal advisers and, finally, domiciliary care workers by July 2013.
Offence not to register
After these dates it will be an offence to work while not being registered.
There will be a grace period of a maximum of six months for new entrants or returners to the workforce to allow them to start work while they achieve registration, as long as they apply as soon as possible after being employed.
The consultation is also seeking views on extending the length of registration for certain categories of social care worker to allow sufficient time to achieve the NISCC’s post-registration and learning requirements. Currently social workers are required to renew their registration every three years. The consultation closes on 26 October.
England, Scotland and Wales
In England, the General Social Care Council requires social workers and social work students to register with it but the register is not open to any other group even on a voluntary basis. It was announced earlier this year that the register would open to domiciliary care staff next year on a voluntary basis.
In Wales registration with the Care Council for Wales is compulsory for social workers, social work students and social care managers, along with residential child care managers and workers.
Source: CommunityCare
DH study finds carers’ grant money spent on desired purpose
Most English councils have been spending carers’ grant money on its desired purpose despite the removal of its ring-fence in 2003, a Department of Health-commissioned study has found.
The University of Leeds study received responses from 63 local authorities on how they had spent the grant between 2005 and 2007.
It showed that the fund had enabled local authorities to develop a range of carer support services, such as home-based breaks and young carers projects.
Social workers inspired
In particular, the establishment of small discretionary payments that could be made to carers on a one-off basis was “inspiring social workers to act more creatively”, said the report. The grant is worth £240m in 2009-10 and is paid to councils as part of the general area-based grant.
However, councils shared concerns that the services were still only touching the “tip of the iceberg” in meeting carers’ needs and that getting the right kind of information to carers continued to be a challenge.
The report recommends that the grant is used to increase the capacity to identify carers not in touch with services or eligible for support and to improve joined-up working between different council departments and partnerships between primary care trusts and other health bodies.
‘Void in information’
Imelda Redmond, chief executive of Carers UK - which instigated the study – said she was “pleased that local authorities had been explicit about how they are spending money on support for carers”.
She added: “But there is still a void in information as to exactly what proportion of that money comes from the grant since the ring-fence was removed.”
“What’s also missing is research into what impact this support is having on carers, this should be the next step for a study,” she added.
Source: CommunityCare
Young adults’ mental health problems flagged in report
The major mental health problems suffered by young adults from vulnerable backgrounds, particularly those in custody, have been highlighted by a wide-ranging study of data from Young People in Focus.
The Young adults today study was launched to mark a change of name for the charity formerly known as the Trust for the Study of Adolescence.
High suicide rates for young adult offenders
It found young adults in custody were eight to 10 times more likely than young adults in the general population to commit suicide. Young adult offenders were also three times more likely than the general population to have a mental health problem.
And for all of those aged 15-24, suicide was the second most common cause of death after road traffic accidents.
The report, which drew on a wide range of data including official government statistics, also estimated that more than a third of girls will self harm at some point in their lives.
Disproportionate rates of unemployment and health problems
Kevin Lowe, co-director of Young People in Focus, said young adults made up a “disproportionate number of those behind bars, those unemployed and those suffering from mental and physical health problems”.
The Young Adults Today report will contribute to the work of the Transition to Adulthood Alliance, which was set up by the Barrow Cadbury Trust and aims to improve the way young people are treated in the criminal justice system.
Lowe said Young People in Focus would continue the activities it carried out under its former name, particularly developing practical resources for professionals.
In October, it will pilot an accredited training programme for people working with young people in supported housing, with a view to rolling it out from February 2010.
Source: CommunityCare
Dispute over Redundancy Payments
Unison and Glen Care Group are in dispute over redundancy payments for staff at Orchard Lodge, London’s last secure children’s home, which closed last week.
Unison said it could take legal action to protect staff formerly employed at Orchard Lodge, which closed last Friday evening (31 July) after 45 workers had occupied the building in protest at being given less than two hours’ notice of their redundancy.
The closure of Orchard Lodge, which provided beds for 24 young male offenders, came after the Youth Justice Board (YJB) decided to terminate its contract with the home from July.
Insolvency warning
Unison fears the home’s 70 staff, including social workers, will not receive full redundancy payments – and other entitlements including holiday pay – if Orchard Lodge’s parent company, London Secure Services, is declared insolvent.
London Secure Services is a separate limited company from other Glen Care Group businesses, but has common directors.
In its last filed accounts, for the year to 31 July 2007, London Secure Services reported a pre-tax loss of £1.24m, which included an interest charge of more than £840,000.
£12m loan
In October 2005, London Secure Services took out an £11.84m loan to fund its purchase of Orchard Lodge, which took place in March 2006.
If London Secure Services is declared insolvent, Orchard Lodge staff would have to claim payments from the National Insurance Fund, through the Insolvency Service’s Redundancy Payments Office.
Through this scheme, redundancy payments are based on maximum pay of £350 a week, and up to 20 years of continuous service, which would mean some staff would receive less money than they would be entitled to get directly from the company.
Claim and counter-claim
Unison regional organiser Daniel Peppiatt claimed that Orchard Lodge staff were employed under contract by Glen Care Group and should receive their entitlements in full.
But this was denied by London Secure Services director Gordon Phillips, who said Glen Care Group, of which he is also chairman, was the generic name for the overall business, but not a registered limited company in its own right.
“All the employees are paid by London Secure Services Limited,” he said.
Phillips said Orchard Lodge staff were notified of the closure at short notice because the company had run out of funds and would have been trading illegally if it had continued to operate.
Judicial review against YJB tendering process
Glen Care, with support from the Howard League for Penal Reform, has taken the YJB to judicial review, arguing that its tendering process was “flawed”.
A judgment on the judicial review is expected within 10 weeks, and Glen Care has also applied to the High Court for compensation from the YJB, which Phillips said would be put towards staff redundancy payments.
Secure children’s homes are said to offer more intensive and care-oriented support to young people than they would receive at secure training centres or young offender institutions.
However, Orchard Lodge was one of four secure homes to lose their contracts with the YJB when it decided in March to cut the number of beds it commissions from 219 to 191.
Source: CommunityCare
MPs raise concerns over CPS treatment of mentally ill
MPs today criticised the lack of support from the Crown Prosecution Service for crime victims with mental health problems and raised concerns that they were not being treated as credible witnesses.
In a report on the CPS, the House of Commons’ justice committee said it was concerned that people with mental health problems were not being supported to give evidence because they were not being identified as eligible for “special measures”.
These include being able to give evidence by video link or use communication aids.
Credibility problem
It also said it was “concerned” at evidence it had received that “the CPS may be reluctant to recognise that people with mental health problems can be credible witnesses at all”.
Earlier this year the High Court ruled that the CPS had breached the human rights of a man with a history of mental illness, who had his ear bitten off in an altercation, by abandoning the case because they thought he would be an unreliable witness.
‘Individual failings’
In response, the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, admitted onBBC Radio 4’s Today programme that there had been “individual failings” in the treatment of witnesses with mental health problems, but claimed the CPS was improving on this score.
In a press statement, he pointed to policies issued this week on improving support for witnesses with mental health problems or learning disabilities, to ensure they “have the same access to justice as anyone else, being able to give evidence and have that evidence treated seriously”.
Paul Farmer, chief executive of mental health charity Mind, said: “The CPS and the criminal justice system as a whole is working on the assumption that any experience of mental distress, from post-natal depression to anxiety attacks 20 years previously, means that your evidence cannot be considered ‘reliable’.
‘Out of date and out of touch’
“The blanket assumption that people who have had a mental health problem cannot be trusted in court is ludicrous, and reflects a view of mental health that is out of date and out of touch.”
In evidence to the committee Mind also warned that the CPS did not provide sufficient mental health training for proseuctors to help them make “consistently good” decisions concerning mental health and credibility.
Source: CommunityCare
