C.E. Jottings

Even Councils have to comply with the Law, it seems. Council cuts to short breaks ruled "unlawful"

Following 39-year old Luke Davey's challenge against Oxfordshire Council's cut to his care package, comes news of two families success in challenging West Berkshire Councils cuts to short breaks for their children: "West Berkshire families win court battle over care cuts" In this latest case, the judge, Mrs Justice Laing, ruled the council's decision was "unlawful". In a written ruling, the Judge also said that the council's decision-making process was flawed because "members' attention was not drawn" adequately to relevant... Read more →

Care Act 2014 - Wellbeing principle - legal challenge by disabled man against cut to his care package

I hope Community Care won't mind but I'm going to quote their report in full: High Court allows first legal challenge over Care Act wellbeing principle My personal interest is that my daughter, Sarah, is going through the same process of re-assessment, is of a similar age and, most importantly, we as her parents would want a similar case to be made for her in terms of the importance of her wellbeing. Paces - where she attends the adult group... Read more →

Love is as relevant to person centred plans, one page profiles, risk assessments as a stale Jaffa cake.

Love and Dignity. Two words. Two blog posts from Mark Neary (See "Blogs I read" just to the right of here, below the Live Traffic Feed and CE Blogs). "Love Baffles" - "Love is as relevant to person centred plans, one page profiles, risk assessments as a stale Jaffa cake." "Dignity My Arse" - "Fundamental values like dignity become corrupted, so their only value to the corrupted professional is to mislead or cover their own arse. Or both. Whether you... Read more →

Stayin' Alive! Who cares? Friends do. We all need friends.

Loneliness kills. In that two-word summary, is the essence of a new study from Brigham Young University. With an ageing population, isolation among the elderly is becoming an ever more serious matter. Life or death. The downloadable study, published in the journal PLoS Medicine, finds that a lack of social relationships is as bad as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being an alcoholic and is more harmful than not exercising or obesity. I, of course, think immediately of adults... Read more →

"#LBBill – draft one launched"

From LB Bill website: #LBBill – draft one launched "We are delighted to be able to share the first draft of the LB Bill with you all. We are looking forward to discussing how the law needs to change. We think there are two key things that must change. We wish to: make it a legal reality for disabled people to be fully included in their communities make it harder for the State to force disabled people to leave their... Read more →

The Southern Health Powerpoint - Disgust and Incredulity

Disgust and incredulity. That's my reaction to the Powerpoint training slide below. "What happened?" is broadly correct, if incomplete, as a statement. "What worked well?" is shaming and shameful. "I keep thinking about that PowerPoint and trying to understand the person (or persons) who wrote it, delivered it and made it publicly available on the internet. Were they simply just stupid?" (From a Comment beneath the blog posting from which the image was taken - see below). You must make... Read more →

Just want to draw your attention to the #LBBill Facebook page.

Just want to draw your attention to the #LBBill Facebook page. "This group, ‪#‎LBBill‬ was set up as a meeting space to discuss plans to turn the idea of a Bill that has a statutory assumption that a person lives in their own home (of their choice) into a reality. The idea for a Bill came from the remarkable success and energy of the ‪#‎justiceforlb‬ campaign. The Bill aims to shift the power into the hands of the disabled person... Read more →

Belated farewell to Dr Sonia Sharp - heading down under to Victoria

Sometimes news travels very slowly. We have only just learned of Dr Sonia Sharp's move from Sheffield to Victoria, Australia. Are there parents and conductors active in Victoria? This is from the City Council website in March 2012. "Dr Sonia Sharp is leaving Sheffield City Council after being personally asked to lead on services for young children for the State of Victoria, Australia - a more senior role than the one she currently holds. She was appointed to this senior... Read more →

Cherish the Parents

Over on Conductive World, Andrew Sutton asks "Cherish parents. Is this bureaucratically possible?" Together, Sarah, her Mum and I are perhaps about to experience a time of enormous change. It is one we, her parents at least, are looking forward to and yet are anxious about, swinging constantly between these two extremes. Sarah is about to move into a new home, along with two of her friends. As part of this process, we have received the following questionnaire. It is... Read more →

Caregivers under strain - in California. Seems familiar

This came into a Gmail account I use as a sort of secondary account. I'm not sure how I came to receive it. Perhaps in the long ago, I signed up for something and have forgotten about it. Anyhow, it's from California; there's a downloadable report, it seems, but apart from that I can't see any way of giving you a link to it. Untypically, therefore, I'm going to copy and paste the whole thing as it seems so relevant... Read more →