Stewards Forum: 3rd June 2010
Children, Young People and Families (CYP&F):
Apparently, there is a pending restructure within Children’s Residential (Disabilities).
The draft proposal is to close the present units at Keresforth and Wombwell and move the staff to one purpose built unit.
Staff members had some concerns recently when they were asked to attend a number of workplace consultation meetings. Unfortunately Unison was not made aware of these planned staff meetings and when Management was challenged regarding their remit, their response was as follows:
The reason for the meetings is to explain the work around the Needs Assessment that has been commissioned by the Executive Commissioning group of the Children Trust.
The remit of the needs assessment is to consider how much residential short break is needed as we move into the future. The changes in the system is the Aiming High for Disabled Children programme which has brought about developments in a wide range of services for children and families. It is therefore necessary to look at current usage of the residential short break service to determine need and provision into the future.
The result of the needs assessment will be fed back into the Executive Commissioning group at the meeting in June whereupon there will be a decision reached by this group about the amount of service to be provided by Newsome Avenue.
Chris Finnegan and Richard Lynch have visited staff groups in order to explain this piece of work.
I have asked Management to keep me informed of any further developments or proposed future planned staff meetings.
Adult Social Services:
Learning Disabilities:
Within Supported Living proposals are being considered on the feasibility of adopting the hand held technology device (SARAH) presently used in the Independent Living Service.
One of our Workplace Stewards was asked to attend a recent meeting representing Unison and myself where the scoping and feasibility of this device would be discussed.
Stewards Forum: 3rd June 2010