The Valuing People Now Policy - Essay Example

Valuing People Now and Social Policy Valuing People Now and Social Policy “People with learning disabilities can lead full and rewarding lives as many already do. But others find themselves pushed to the margins of our society. And almost all encounter prejudice, bullying, insensitive treatment and discrimination at some time in their lives. Such prejudice and discrimination – no less hurtful for often being unintentional – has a very damaging impact. It leads to your world becoming smaller, opportunities more limited, a withdrawal from wider society so time is spent only with family, carers or other people with learning disabilities. What’s also a real cause for concern and anxiety is that many parents of learning disabled children face difficulties in finding the right care, health services, education and leisure opportunities for their sons and daughters. At best, they can feel obstacles are constantly put in their way by society. At worst, they feel abandoned by the rest of us. We have to change this situation if we are to achieve our goal of a modern society in which everyone is valued and has the chance to play their full part.” (TONY BLAIR) There were about 210,000 people with learning disability throughout England and about 1.2 million with little or minor disability. The expenditure on health and social services was around £3 billion. 30 years before the last white paper “Better Services for the Mentally Handicapped” was introduced which was aimed at improving the social service in the community but it was observed that it was not enough and a new policy was badly needed. In March 2001, a white paper was presented to the British parliament by the Secretary for state for health, by command of her majesty. Named as Valuing People, it was based on the learning disabilities of people and set out a motivated and difficult target for improving social services and policies. The proposals constituted of four major topics: independence, choice, inclusion and civil rights. The targets which were set out in this policy were long term based. Starting with a compact approach to services for disabled children and their families, the policy was aimed to then provide enough chances for a full fledge and determined adult life. It further aimed at providing career opportunities to them so that they can have better employments, better living standards, good health and a complete command and control on their lives. The policy was aimed at a swift transition of the disable people in to their adult lives, taking effective measure to ensure that they become self dependent. The Valuing People Now Policy is being implemented under the Department of Health, which has established a National Learning Disability Program Board. This board is linked with the Regional Learning Disability Board through the involvement of all the respective stake holders and the people with such disabilities and their families. This chain continues to the grass root level linking up the local boards with the regional and the national board, thus making sure that the representation of disabled people is at all levels for the better implementation of this policy, which is primarily aimed to make the lives of learning disabled people better. To make this policy more efficient, it was decided to involve all the respective legislative agencies, boards and trusts. The participation of Local Authority Cabinets, Primary Care Trust Boards, Acute and Mental Health and National Health Service Boards, Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships etc all have a very important and effective role to play if this policy is truly to be implemented to make the people with learning disorders truly a part of this society. The Government has established Partnership Boards in the local areas for the better implementation of this Valuing People Now policy. A partnership board consists of a group of people from that particular local area who sit together and decide what steps are supposed to be taken in order to implement this policy for the betterment and goodwill of the people with learning disabilities. There are a total of 152 boards which are working in all the 9 different regions of the United Kingdom. All these partnership boards are supposed to make an annual report on their progress in the implementation of this policy. This helps the government to take a look at what is exactly happening at the grass root level. It helps to pin point those sectors which need more attention and also those segments which are being successfully run. All the Partnership Boards send their annual reports to their respective Regional Boards. Each regional board access and analyze these local reports. They make a summary of the progress that is happening in their respective regions and send this summary to the National Learning Disability Program Board where the main points are discussed at the National Level and important decisions are made related to the implementation of this policy. It is observed that people with learning disabilities have severe problems in leading a good social life. They are mostly neglected in all the aspects of life. These people, although fully talented and capable like normal people, are not provided enough opportunities to excel in their respective lives. The problem starts with the ineffectiveness to the education provided to them. These people require special learning techniques, unlike others, to learn and grasp the concepts and teachings which form the bases of professional education. It is observed that people with learning disabilities and being bullied and cornered at times just because they are not as sharp as others. This eventually hurts their self confidence and personality. Moving further, learning disabled people have a problem in leading an independent life. They do not get enough opportunities of employment and this result in their dependency on others, especially their respective families. These people never get a chance to live their life according to their personal desires and will. Such people are sometimes discriminated because of their disabilities. Laws like the Disability Discrimination Act give people with learning disability a very prominent set of legal rights. The Valuing People Now policy is also aimed at providing such people the basic rights and facilities so that they can live a better an equal opportunity life. Valuing People Now policy is themed on providing such people a chance to live a better life, which is full of opportunities and chances to help people with learning disabilities get better education, more self confidence, a healthy chance of personalization, better employment opportunities, increased social services, equality in all the portions of life, hence a chance to be an active and effective part of the society. Although Valuing People aims at making all the aspects of life better for the disabled people, yet it has some major priorities which includes people being healthy and getting good services from the National Health Service, being in charge of their own lives, activities they do in the day and in the evenings including getting a paid job, and having a choice to decide where they want to live. In order to achieve the goals which are set for the disabled people in this policy, to make them stand on their own feet, to enable them to take control of their lives and have sufficient choices related to their profession and careers, it is necessary that they have support to admittance to the relevant information and the right to express their feelings openly. Individual and collective encouragement is a must to achieve these goals. Travelling around is a necessity of day to day life. Therefore providing access of easy transport to the learning disabled people is among the main concern and a top priority goal of Valuing People Now policy, so that these people can easily travel around, without any hindrance, and get to their work place, to leisure activities, meet family and friends, without depending on others. The agenda of Valuing People Now policy includes raising awareness across the national, regional and the local government setups, private sector and the voluntary societies. It aims at having an efficient Learning Disability Partnership Board which will be operational in every regional and local government body. Furthermore the policy was directed to have better healthcare facilities and to improve the quality of health of the disables. The agendas of personalization and improved employment chances are also a part of this policy. Keeping in view the top four priorities of Valuing People Now policy, that is, people having control over the choices and selection of their lives, getting a job, getting good health services and having more choices related to the selection of their houses, it is necessary to analyze them and decide how successfully are they being implemented and what is required to make them more efficient. The first priority is personalization, which means that people with learning disability should have the right to decide what they want to do with their life and how they want to live it. A concept of Person Centered Planning was developed to implement the idea of personalization. ‘A person-centered approach to planning means that planning should start with the individual (not with services), and take account of their wishes and aspirations. Person-centered-planning is a mechanism for reflecting the needs and preferences of a person with a learning disability.’ (VALUING PEOPLE, 2001, p49). This concept is working successfully and yielding good results but still in some areas of the United Kingdom people still do not have a Person Centered Plan. It is also observed that not all the organizations and bodies, involved in the implementation of the Valuing People Now policy, are doing Person Centered Planning properly or they even do not have a Person Centered Plan. A lot more people are now getting direct payments which help them to lead their lives according to their needs and their will. But still not enough people get this facility and ultimately the right support that is required to them is not available. The idea of individual budgets is introduced to enable people with learning disability in order to gain more control over their lives. This concept enables the people to decide that how money is spent over their services, which includes getting a job and housing etc. This idea is relatively new but learning from it will help to implement the concept of personalization more effectively. The second priority of Valuing People Now policy is to ensure that people with learning disability should get some activity during day as well as during the evening. This includes a chance to get a paid job or to go to school, college or university. ‘Valuing People wanted people to have good lives, doing the things they want to do. People should have the chance to get a job and go to college.’ (VALUING PEOPLE NOW, 2008). With the introduction of this policy, many people now have a paid job. Although the number of such people is still relatively low, but on the positive side if this policy is implemented with a bit more efficiency, this number could be increased. The government plans on increasing the number of courses for people with learning disability. This will provide a chance to such people to get professional education which will help them get a career. But it is observed that at some colleges the duration of such courses is cut short. It is also observed that some people do not get the course of their choice and are forced to study such courses in which they do not have any personal interest. The third major priority is to provide better health facilities to the people having learning disabilities. Health is an important aspect of one’s life. The Valuing People Now policy aims at making the National Health Service more effective and efficient so that it could provide the people with learning disabilities an improved service and better health opportunities. It is being promised by the government thorough this policy that people with learning disability will get regular checkups. But again this promise is not yet fulfilled on a large scale. It is still very much required that steps should be taken to make this promise happen for everyone. The National Health Service has closed down some of its out dated services and has updated its system. But specialist health services, like community teams, are at times not as efficient as they should be. The Care Quality Commission is a new body which is set up to look after the social care services and the quality of health facilities that are being offered to the people with learning disabilities. Better living facility is the fourth major priority of Valuing People Now policy. The people with learning disabilities have the right to have their own houses where they can live and lead their life the way they want to. With the implementation of this policy, many disable people now have their own homes where they are successfully living a happy life like normal people. But still this number is not greater than those who are still living with their families or living in residential care. It is estimated that with the implementation of this policy many long stay hospitals or National Health Service campuses have closed down. But reports say that still about 3000 people are living in such campuses. The Department of Health and the Department for communities and Local Government have the responsibility to provide housing to such people. They are working on a joint plan to make sure that people with learning disabilities make the most of the government housing plans. Besides these top priorities, Valuing People Now aims at providing fundamental rights and advocacy to the people with learning disabilities. More and more organizations are set up which provide supports on advocacy and basic rights. But many people still do not understand the Disability Equality Duty completely. Some organizations are not acting upon the guide lines provided to them by the law. ‘Government objective: To enable people with learning disabilities to have as much choice as possible over their lives through advocacy and a person-centered approach to planning the services and support they need.’ (VALUING PEOPLE, 2001, p44) The question about whether the Government should directly fund the advocacy was first time raised in 1986 after the Disabled Persons Act suggested that each person with learning disability should have a right to centrally funded advocacy. In 1996 the Direct Payments Act was initiated. It was observed that vital change in approaches to service condition would: “… Co-exist, within a framework of rights, along a continuum of choice and inclusion with key decisions controlled by the service user.” (Robins, 2006) It is a fact that the families and carers of people with learning disabilities will play an important role in their betterment. So involving them in Valuing People Now based activities is important, as their feedback will help improve the policy implementation methods. ‘Government is setting up a national Group called a Standing Commission on Carers so that the voice of carers is heard.’ (VALUING PEOPLE NOW, 2008). But many such families complain that they are not listened to. And because of lack of support their family lives are not easier and things are getting hard for them. Valuing People Now Policy is a huge step towards the betterment of lives of the people with learning disabilities. The goals which were set up under this policy are based on providing support to such people directly so that they can live a life just like normal people. The involvement of people from the grass root level to the top of the government ensures that effective measures are taken and scrutinized so that ultimately the people become the beneficiaries. Those people, who have never thought that they will get a chance to live a normal life just because they have some disabilities, got a ray of hope for betterment with this policy. But still a lot is needed to be done. There are many issues which still need to be addressed. Many people still are not provided with the basic necessities. Their rights, which are provided to them by the law, are still not given. Therefore it is necessary to more closely evaluate this policy in order to make it more effective so that the people with learning disabilities get more benefit out of it. Bibliography JAMES BLEWETT, JANET LEWIS AND JANE TUNSTILL. 2007. The Changing Roles and Tasks of Social Work. A literature informed discussion paper. ALCOCK, PETER. 2008. Social Policy in Britain. Third Edition, Palgrave MacMillan. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. Valuing People Now: The Delivery Plan. http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/documents/digitalasset/dh_093371.pdf HOSPITALS AND SERVICE PUBLICATIONS Ltd. (2008). The Health Service Journal. GREAT BRITAIN PARLIAMENT: JOINT COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS. A life like any other?: human rights of adults with learning disabilities. JOHNSON, JAN WALMSLEY. People with Intellectual Disabilities: Towards a Good Life? LAWTON, ANNIE. 2009. Personalization and learning disabilities: A review of evidence on advocacy and its practice for people with learning disabilities and high support needs. Social Care Institute for Excellence. Read More