Healthwatch Survey – Paying for social care
What is this about?
In 2018, Oxfordshire County Council did a review of its policy on what people pay towards their social care. These payments (called “contributions”) help to pay for social care services to help you in your daily life. After the review, your weekly payment towards the cost of these services may or may not have changed.
We would like to hear from you about your experiences of this process and how any changes to your weekly payment have affected you and those who support you.
Who we are and what are we asking for
Healthwatch Oxfordshire is an independent charity and is not part of the Council. We are here to help make sure that the voices of people who use support services are heard. We will use the information you provide us to tell the County Council what you think and to influence how it reviews policies in the future.
To participate in the Healthwatch Oxfordshire: Paying for your social care survey, follow the link to https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/SNKQS/
Life Long Caring

em·bold·en

(funded by Comic Relief)
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.
REACH – Reflections on Supported Living today
REACH Standards – constantly aspire for better Reflections on Supported Living today.
The Radio 4 programme, File on 4 on 12 February 2019 looked at supported living and what the increases in unexplained deaths and serious injuries mean for those living in supported living environments. At LDE we believe that institutionalisation can happen in any setting if strong values and principles are not driving how the support is designed and delivered. Good https://epilepsy.wales/kamagra-sildenafil care and support cannot be achieved when economic factors rather than the people supported have come to dominate the shape of available care models…
To read more follow this link: REACH – Reflections on Supported Living today
Family Investment in Supported Housing
Challenging Financial Assessment Contribution Charging Policy
If you support someone who has had a financial assessment and has been assessed as needing to contribute towards the cost of their care then we would like to hear from you. We would like to challenge OCC’s Care Contribution Policy and ask them to be more transparent about how the process works. We know from the families who get in contact that many feel that financial assessments are unfair and that it is difficult to evidence disability related expenses above the allocated 35%. To help support our challenge, we would like to submit some anonymised case studies to show the wide range of issues that families are dealing with. Personalised stories are much more meaningful and it is important that the Local Authority and Councillors understand the impact and stress that many carers are under as they navigate their way through what is a very unclear process. We have created a template for you to complete in order to capture the key information about care contributions for person you support. Closing date for completing this form is FRIDAY 14th JULY. OxFSN will then send a letter along with the case studies asking for OCC to address our concerns. |
To complete the form please click on the above image or the link below. All case studies will be anonymised so there will be no connection to the person completing the form. We will not change any of the information you provide so feel free to avoid using pronouns if that helps. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1VWP_b6HbQRAWF0Xqc85l1eRwVG35LpuOEK0321kx5-o/edithttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/1VWP_b6HbQRAWF0Xqc85l1eRwVG35LpuOEK0321kx5-o/edit |
What is an Integrated Care Board?
In every area there is an organisation that plans and pays for NHS services.
This is called an Integrated Care Board. Click on the link to read more:
Embolden 2 Launch Event
![]() Come and hear about OxFSN’s new project ![]() Please use this zoom link to join the meeting Topic: Embolden 2 launch Time: Dec 7, 2022 01:00 PM Greenwich Mean Time https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89383177528?pwd=SmQ4R2NxYXhFZTU5MW1xYncrL2k3Zz09 Passcode: 295898 One tap mobile +442034815240,,89383177528#,,,,*295898# UnitedKingdom +442080806591,,89383177528#,,,,*295898# United Kingdom We hope that family carers, siblings and other relatives will be able to attend but recognise that people work, so if you are interested in knowing more about the project please get in contact using the button below. We are planning on running coffee mornings across the county to meet with those family carers who prefer to meet face to face. If you are aware of anyone who you think would benefit from knowing more about this project, please ask them to get in touch. Contact OxFSN here |
The Moving Into Adulthood Handbook
The Moving Into Adulthood Handbook This handbook is primarily for family carers of a young person with a learning disability and/or autism and professionals who are going through or supporting someone from the ages of 14 – 25 (with an EHCP) through the Moving into Adulthood stage.…and even if the person you support is younger …or older, you may still find some of the chapters helpful. Each chapter focuses on a different area and gives an overview of what you need to know as you and your family member navigate your way through the Moving Into Adulthood stage including further resources that you may find helpful. The Handbook is designed to be a dip in and out resource – we wouldn’t recommend reading it all at once but we hope you will find it informative and useful.And please do get in touch if you have any suggestions, or a link doesn’t work, or we’ve missed something you think should be included. It has been checked but things change and we know, even we can get things wrong. |
You can find out more information about the contents of the chapters and how to download them at this dedicated webpage by clicking on the image below: |
Moving into Adulthood Handbook |
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