Care Act for carers: One year on. Lessons learned, next steps

Have carers noticed any difference since the Care Act (2014) came in? That is the question this report tries to answer. The answer? Not yet. Carers provide the bulk of care in our country. Three in five of us will become carers at some point in our lives. Without carers our NHS and social services would be overwhelmed. But many carers pay a heavy price for their caring role in both their health and their wealth. We were told by many of those who contributed to our work that the Care Act is an important piece of social reform but its potential is far from being realised. The Care Act puts carers on an equal footing with those who have care needs. This parity in law is new, some even say revolutionary. Councils have a duty to promote the wellbeing of carers and to prevent burn out and crisis. What we found is a mixed picture. There are beacons of good practice, but there is plenty of darkness too. For many of the carers who responded to Carers Trust call for evidence the response was stark, no, the Act had made no difference. Indeed, for many it was news to them that there were new rights. Some told us that it was too early to review the impact of the Act. We disagree. This was never going to be a full-blown evaluation but it is a first snapshot, a baseline, that can be used to measure progress. It also offers the opportunity to provide encouragement and warnings about the ongoing implementation of the legislation. We heard during the course of our evidence gathering that the 1948 National Assistance Act, which the Care Act replaced, took almost a decade to become embedded and supplant the Poor Law mind-set of many charged with its implementation. The same can be said today about the Care Act. More work is needed to impress upon those responsible for the day-to-day implementation of the Act that business as usual is not good enough. The Care Act raises the bar. It expects decision-makers to look at the wellbeing of the carer and where necessary take a whole family approach. 3 We found evidence that when it comes to assessment the law is either poorly understood or ignored. Too often it appears that carers are fobbed off with a one-off payment as if that discharges the obligation to promote their wellbeing. We remain optimistic about the transformative potential of the Care Act. This report should be essential reading for Directors of Adult and Children’s Services, and Directors of Public Health. It has messages for the NHS too. Above all it is about making improvements for carers themselves

The Pursuit of Happiness: A new ambition for our mental health

Chaired by former MP and minister for mental health, Paul Burstow, the CentreForum Mental Health Commission undertook a 12 month study of the state of wellbeing in England by identifying five key priorities between now and 2020

Investing in a resilient generation: Keys to a mentally prosperous nation

Closing the mental health treatment gap is an impossible dream if we fail to stem the tide of people living with mental ill-health. While there remains an urgent need to significantly improve access to support and treatment, this alone is not sufficient. We must look ‘upstream’ and shift the focus towards maximising young people’s resilience and minimising the risks to their mental health. It is by closing the prevention gap that we can close the treatment gap too. As this report demonstrates, there is sufficient evidence to act now to begin the systematic shift of paradigm envisaged by the Commission. Such a decisive step would position the UK as a global leader in addressing the single largest global health challenge. To delay is to countenance avoidable harm. The costs of failing to marshal the necessary resources and implement large-scale programmes are huge. The time for small-scale pilots is over. It is time to change the paradigm and close the prevention ga

Five priorities for improving children's mental health. The mental wealth of the nation is critical to our future – young people’s mental wellbeing should be paramount

The mental health of the nation is built on foundations laid in the early years of our lives. Yet our mental health system is designed and funded to pay the price of our failure to act on the evidence and invest in the right family support in those childhood years. We go through many life changes and transitions in our childhood and teenage years. It’s why the age of 18 is the wrong time for child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs) to “hand over” to adult services. A joint report by the health and education select committees has turned the spotlight on the role schools can play. According to a study by Martin Knapp at the London School of Economics, the costs of poor mental health land disproportionately in our schools. Over half of the mean cost of addressing emotional and behavioural problems is incurred in frontline education

New ways of working and learning can grow resilient children’s social workers. Recruitment and retention are key issues for employers in a sector where the average career span is put at eight years

We expect a great deal from children’s social workers – they work with chaotic families, they have to look into the darkest parts of society, juggle large caseloads and hold huge amounts of emotional collateral. When things go well, their work often goes unnoticed; when things go wrong, the sky falls on their head. It is perhaps unsurprising that this story plays out in the numbers too; the vacancy rate for children’s social workers was 17% last September, according to new data published by the Department for Education. The same data suggests more than two-thirds of vacancies are covered by agency staff. A third of social workers leave the profession within two years, and the average career span is just eight years. With all this considered, workforce must be a priority for the What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care. The DfE data also raises critical questions about how we improve recruitment, resilience and retention of this essential workforce, and points us to places to learn from. Last year Ofsted published its verdict on Camden children’s services where my trust, the Tavistock and Portman, works in partnership with the council and its schools. The trust supports social workers by providing expertise and training and our staff are integrated in frontline social work and early help teams

We need to talk about doing social care differently. Of course the money matters. But the debate about social care should be about meaning and purpose as well as who pays

A new year and a new minister will pick up the social care reform baton. But how far will they get before they pass it on or drop it? This year offers little prospect of short-term relief for the social care sector. I hope I am wrong, but the absence of any new funding in the November budget makes further cash unlikely. That means all eyes will be on the green paper and the 2018 budget to pave the way for a sustainable funding settlement. While 2017 saw greater public awareness of social care, there remains little understanding of the sector. Most people don’t know that social care is means tested or where it ends and the NHS begins. Before any funding reform can succeed, the veil of ignorance must be lifted. But funding for what? In 2018, the debate about social care must be more than a question of funding and who pays. Of course the money matters, the current offering from our state-subsidised system is limited, offers little innovation, compromises quality and is focused on task at the expense of relationships and connection. Social care in 2018: time to think about the future workforce Sharon Allen Read more In 2018, we need to talk about doing care differently. A new report by Independent Age is clear that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution

The Care Act is failing to support carers. Legislation gave new rights to carers but its potential is far from being realised

Have carers noticed any difference since the Care Act came in? That is the question the Carers Trust asked me to try to answer. Over the past six months, I’ve been working with a small team of experts by experience and professionals to take the first snapshot of the impact of the act. Carers provide the bulk of care in our country. Three in five of us will become carers at some point in our lives. Without carers, our already stretched NHS and social services would be overwhelmed. But many carers pay a heavy price for their role in both their health and their wealth. During our inquiry, we were told by many of those who contributed that the Care Act is an important piece of social reform but its potential is far from being realised. The Care Act puts carers on an equal footing with those who have care needs. This parity in law is new, some even say revolutionary. Councils have a duty to promote the wellbeing of carers and to prevent burnout and crisis

Family courts are a revolving door for too many parents. Family drug and alcohol courts can help break the patterns that blight children’s lives; this innovation should be shared

How do we upgrade the family justice system so that it disrupts patterns of family violence, drug abuse and mental distress, which blight children’s lives, at great human cost and expense to the taxpayer? These behaviours of violence, drug abuse and mental distress are passed down from generation to generation. They are amplified by traumatic childhoods, social isolation and social injustice. Standard care proceedings fail to address them. For too many parents, the family court is a revolving door, with child after child removed, often for similar reasons. Indeed, the parents themselves have often been subject to care proceedings as children. Our conventional model of family justice is not working for children. There is a need to innovate. That is why my trust, the Tavistock and Portman, has developed a family drug and alcohol court (FDAC); and we want to spread the concept