In July 2016, Oxfordshire Family Support Network (OxFSN) began a three-year project, Embolden, to support, advocate for and empower older family carers aged 60+ years who care for a family member with a learning disability.
This report is dedicated to the 215 family carers who brought Embolden to life.
Follow the link to read the full report – Embolden Project Evaluation Report August 2019, or, click on the image below:
OxFSN’s Better Together event was held on the 8th of November 2018 at the Kassam Stadium in Oxford and attended by 117 people.
53 professionals from Health, Social Care, Education and the voluntary sector attended along with 60 family carers of children or adults with learning disabilities and/or autism and seven people with learning disabilities and their supporters.
Follow the links to read reports:
Better Together Event Report and accompanying Better Together Event ‘You Said : We Did’ Feedback Report
Few of us will not at some point in our life take on the role of carer for a family member. For the majority of us it is usually an elderly parent or a spouse.
There is, however, a group of people whose caring role often goes unnoticed. Who fall under our radar as not only are they silently getting on with their caring role, and have done so for all of their life, but unless we know someone in a similar situation – we often are not aware that they even exist.
These are the Family Carers whose child is born with a learning disability and who, as a result, spend their life battling, fighting, negotiating and supporting their son or daughter to lead as normal life as possible.
Through the OxFSN Embolden Project, funded by Comic Relief, we work with older family carers to give this seldom heard group of people a collective voice in order to influence and hold decision makers to account.
Equally important is the need to highlight those individual family carers, some of whom are in their 70’s, 80’s and even 90’s, who are still supporting their family member, some who are still living at home and some who are living out of county.
This small exhibition aims to give each family carer or carers their own unique voice but also to show that whatever the circumstances of their family member, the family carer cannot step back and ‘retire’. Each story gives an insight in to the range of support and involvement they have given and continue to do so.
We would like to thank each of these family carers for allowing us to share their own individual and personal stories. They reflect the range of emotions that comes with raising a child with a learning disability – the hopes, the fears, the uncertainty and best of all the joy and laughter that each and everyone brings.
To us they are the unsung heroes who have fought to ensure that their ‘child’ is given the same recognition that we want for any of our children but have unselfishly dedicated all their life to doing so.
With special thanks to Sara Ryan for providing the photographs of our family carers.
The photographs and carers’ Life Long Caring stories are currently on display at Oxfordshire County Council County Hall during the month of June 2019.
For further information contact Kathy Liddell, em·bold·en Project Administrator.
Oxfordshire Family Support Network – Statement: Whorlton Hall Abuse – Panorama exposé
The abuse, mistreatment, mental and physical torture of people with learning disabilities and/or Autism at Whorlton Hall has shocked, distressed and angered all of us. How can this still be happening, 8 years on from Winterbourne and following the Government’s public commitment to transform care?
OxFSN believe that it is too easy to simply blame the culture of one institution and specific individuals who perpetrate this abhorrent abuse. While these individuals and those who stood by and did nothing are clearly culpable there is system wide responsibility. Health Care and support Providers, Commissioners, Local Authorities, the CQC and the Government must all be accountable and accept responsibility for allowing this to continue.
Families all around the country have been raising concerns for years about the poor treatment in these places and their voices have been ignored, individually and collectively. It should not have been the responsibility of an undercover reporter to expose this abuse when systems and processes are meant to be there to safeguard people. We urge statutory agencies around the country to listen to, believe and support families who flag up concerns about their loved ones and take immediate action when they hear about poor practice.
We are seriously concerned that CQC could have rated this hospital as ‘Good’ only last year, when the hostile culture of that service was clearly, deeply embedded. The environment alone was oppressive and grim beyond words and this should have raised immediate concerns. We are shocked that there were 100 visits from officials and NHS staff in the year before the abuse was uncovered and a former Inspector’s warnings, as far back as 2015 were ignored.
Anyone visiting these institutions has to know what a good service looks and feels like and so we therefore have to seriously question the quality and skills of the inspectors as well as those undertaking Care and Treatment Reviews and the processes of both. We are also deeply concerned that there is still a reliance on questioning staff and other professionals and believing them, rather than using their eyes and ears to observe people and speak to them and their families, without staff being present. If any service supporting vulnerable people, whether supported living, residential care or hospital doesn’t demonstrate that they work with and involve people’s families it should be a huge ‘red flag’.
There will inevitably be discussions about funding. It’s a fact that despite increasing need, successive Governments have chronically underfunded social care services year on year for decades. This underfunding has led local authorities to focus on fire – fighting crises rather than on prevention and developing local community based solutions. While there is a high financial cost to keeping people in this non/abusive ‘care’, this is clearly not just about money, it is about how and where money is being spent. People end up in these institutions when their current support breaks down, at
a horrendous human cost so, a focus has to be on prevention and local crisis provision. Money could be better spent on ensuring staff are better trained and appropriately paid for the skills needed to support people to prevent crisis intervention being needed. When or if there is a breakdown in support or people need treatment they should be assessed, treated and discharged as soon as possible, close to home, as with any other medical treatment. Until that happens large private hospitals will continue to be paid millions of pounds to, at best, keep people incarcerated and away from their families and at worst tortured and abused and make a profit in the process. We believe that the solutions lie with a total rethink of the so called system, which is clearly not fit for purpose. This needs real blue sky thinking done in total partnership with families and people with learning disabilities and autism, with a funding system that bridges the gap whilst that takes place.
Oxfordshire currently has three people in Assessment and Treatment Units out of county, and OxFSN supports two of their families. We are working hard alongside NHS and Oxfordshire County Council staff to ensure that these families are listened to and supported and their loved ones come back closer to their families. As a family carer led charity OxFSN will continue to work alongside families and our local services to come up with coproduced local solutions, so there is no need to send people to these large private institutions in the future. And, we will continue to press NHS England for the funding needed to do it!
We aim to build on the good foundations that we have started to lay here through the local Transforming Care Programme. There is much to do but we know what needs to happen locally and will continue to strive to ensure it happens. Alongside this we will continue to support all those families whose fear and anxiety levels will have increased to unprecedented levels. Trust has inevitably been damaged by this and families will feel they need to be ever more vigilant to protect their loved ones.
Finally, our thoughts are with the victims and their families who have had to endure this horrific experience. We thank them for sharing their experiences, it must have been desperately difficult to do this. Our thoughts are also with all the people with learning disabilities and autism currently detained in Assessment and Treatment Units around the country and their families. As parents and family carers ourselves we can only begin to imagine how they are all feeling right now and hope they all get the support they need.
Gail Hanrahan
On behalf of Oxfordshire Family Support Network
(PDF File: OxFSN_Statement_Whorlton_Hall_Abuse-Panorama.pdf)
We have been contacted by a number of families who have been through reviews of their relative’s support packages and have had their budgets cut.
If this has happened to you please get in touch with OxFSN and tell us what happened. We are trying to compile evidence so we can get a clearer picture of what is happening and if necessary challenge.
If you have recently had a review for your relative or have one booked in the coming months, please could you get in touch with OxFSN so we can advise.
Follow this link to read more: Personal budget cuts – Call for Evidence
