Agenda item

For the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee to receive an update on the implementation of the Brent Carer’s Strategy.

Councillor Neil Nerva (Cabinet Member for Community Health and Wellbeing) introduced a report which outlined the development and implementation of the Brent Carers Strategy 2024-2027. In introducing the report, he advised the Committee that it highlighted the process the Council and key partners engaged in to develop the strategy and included the draft strategy alongside it. Paragraph 3.5.9 of the report outlined the 6 commitments of the strategy for the next three years, namely; access to information, partnership working, supporting wellbeing, carer awareness, reaching into communities, and supporting young people at the start of their caring journey. He was pleased to introduce Ann-Marie Morris, Chief Executive of Brent Carers’ Centre to the meeting and Valerie Reid who was an informal carer in Brent.

In continuing the introduction of the report, Claudia Brown (Director Adult Social Care, Brent Council) added that the strategy had been developed and co-produced with carers and had an action plan that sat alongside it that would be implemented with carers. Lynette Gbedze (Service Manager, Direct Services) detailed some of that engagement work, explaining the importance of engagement with carers so that their voice came through the strategy. That engagement had begun in November 2022 working with Brent Carers Centre and other carer organisations within the borough such as Brent Parent Carer Forum and Brent MENCAP. Valerie Reid, an informal carer who had joined the meeting, co-chaired the Carers Board and was asked to share the engagement work that took place with informal carers.

Valerie Reid began by expressing that the engagement work that had took place was very meaningful from her perspective because it meant the strategy was subsequently developed based on carers’ voices. She highlighted that well over 150 different carers had attended those engagements and had been very vocal and honest. All carers who had contributed had their own concerns and she felt that those concerns and the voices of carers had been heard and action taken in response to that. Feedback from those engagements had been that carers felt they were not listened to, that services were fragmented, and that information was in too many different places. Based on those carers’ voices the 6 commitments of the strategy were then shaped.

Ann-Marie Morris concluded the introduction by highlighting that Brent Carers Voice had been involved in getting a group of carers together to attend a consultation meeting between both children’s social care and adults’ social care services. Rachel Crossley (Corporate Director Community Health and Wellbeing, Brent Council) emphasised the fact the strategy was for all ages and a joint effort across directorates.

The Chair thanked presenters for their introduction and invited comments and questions from those present, with the following issues raised:

The Committee acknowledged the importance of support for carers, for example through respite. Claudia Brown agreed, informing the Committee that the Council did work with carers to ensure they had that that support which was often done through the commissioned service, Brent Carers Centre, who helped to connect with carers and work with them in the areas they chose. Valerie Reid added that Brent Carers Centre had always been there for her to provide support. She provided an example of a time where she had needed to think of contingency planning if something were to happen to the person she cared for. She had a carers card identifying her and who to contact if something were to happen to her for the person she cared for if she could not care for them, which Brent Carers Centre had helped her with. She had also been supported by CNWL who had helped her wellbeing and kept her proactive. In addition, Brent carers were provided with training courses such as manual handling.

Continuing to discuss support, Anne-Marie Morris added that, for young carers, a lot of the support was primarily around respite activities and support networks to give them the opportunity to have fun as a child because they did not always get to have those opportunities. Support was also provided to connect with the young person’s family to ensure that the young person was not doing inappropriate levels of care and the person being cared for was not solely dependent on the care of the child. This could involve looking into financial support where needed and ensuring the family was getting all of the benefits they were entitled to. Star Pswarayi (Head of Service – Access Information and Wellbeing Services) added that there was a lot of partnership work to support carers, working with organisations such as Care Free to provide that.

The Committee highlighted the references to unpaid care and asked if there was any feasibility in funding unpaid carers, particularly if carers were relying solely on benefits. Councillor Nerva advised that this ask went beyond Brent Council and would need to be considered at a national level. The value of informal carers had been understood for many years but he felt that successive governments had not sufficiently recognised that value through providing renumeration which he hoped would be something the government would look to do in future.

The Committee asked if there was anything carers would like to see going forward, and heard that carers would like to have a participation day at Brent Civic Centre which helped them to feel valued. Valerie Reid hoped that carers could be further utilised, for example, through delivering training for others as there were many skills a carer could offer.

The Committee noted the visualisation in the report splitting care by different ethnic groups and asked whether the strategy recognised the different needs of care givers from different ethnic groups and whether there were different and personalised approaches being provided to different carers. Claudia Brown confirmed the different needs of carers were taken into consideration. Beyond just the Brent Carers Strategy, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) had a big focus on carers and were looking to develop the approach across London in response to carers services. Brent had many diverse communities and developed its response to carers needs with carers in line with the diverse needs they had. She added that choice and control underpinned all of the work done within Adult Social Care.

In terms of success metrics, the Committee asked how the Council and partners would know the strategy had been implemented. Star Pswarayi would be the project worker implementing the strategy, and there would be a period of evaluation once it had been implemented which would include an invitation to carers to evaluate the implementation. Adult Social Care had also fostered a positive relationship with Brent Healthwatch who were conducting some user surveys and working with carers and service users to get feedback on how those services were being delivered. In terms of quantitative analysis, Star Pswarayi highlighted that Adult Social Care already had the numbers, for example there was an awareness that the Council was not in-reaching as many informal carers as it could, and the numbers accessing carer support were low compared to the number of people delivering care outlined in the Census 2021 findings. As such, there was a good starting point in terms of statistics and figures to be able to monitor, review and compare as the strategy was implemented. The appendix to the strategy provided the timeline up until the end of 2027 and it was expected that initial evaluation would be 6 months post-implementation.

The Committee commended the strategy document and noted that it was quite lengthy. They asked what the plans were for distribution of the document. Officers highlighted that the document was still in draft version and being finalised but it had been shared with the Carers Board and through engagement sessions, and would be taken to the Health and Wellbeing Board for final sign off. Once there was a final document, it would be made available in easy read format, including a young carer friendly version, and there would be PowerPoints available to distribute across carers organisations. Adult Social Care also planned to do some presentations to launch the strategy so everyone was aware what they were entitled to. Councillor Nerva added that this would be an important document for practitioners when meeting informal carers in their professional capacity and the document would be socialised broadly.

The Committee asked what outreach work was done to reach people who might benefit from this work. Anne-Marie Morris outlined the outreach taking place with different organisations who worked with different vulnerable groups. The Brent Carers Centre was trying to engage further with schools to help them to identify young carers. Work was done across the community to raise awareness with practitioners where they were working with children and adults to identify carers and signpost them to support. In relation to young carers, the Council had adopted the strategy of ‘no wrong doors’ which was a nation wide approach to ensure young carers could approach any service and their needs would be addressed.

The Chair thanked members and officers for their comments and drew the item to a close. He invited the Committee to make recommendations with the following RESOLVED:

i.              To recommend that a version of the strategy was made available for other, smaller Councils to use as a consultative tool.

ii.             To recommend that lobbying took place at the relevant level for funding for informal unpaid carers.

iii.            To request for the Committee to receive an update on the implementation of the strategy post-evaluation.

iv.           To request that future reports incorporate Sri Lankan ethnic groups.