Don’t cut: investigate alternatives
Norfolk County Council is proposing to disband its Social Services Sensory Support Team as one of its budget savings for 2011.
Retired social worker, Verity Gibson, criticises the plans as short-sighted.
The Sensory Support Team is a front line service run by specially trained professionals who have the skills to communicate effectively with people who are visually impaired, deaf, deafened and deafblind.
The qualifications are unique to the service and have taken years to develop. They are rarely available locally and nationally and highly valued by the people who they help.
Once lost they cannot be replaced. As a former social worker who managed this team, I believe the council should look at alternatives.
This proposal, made by hearing and seeing people, shows a serious misunderstanding of the impact of sensory impairment with no recognition of the kind of practical difficulties and potential isolation of the people this team has been helping. If this cut goes ahead some 2,500 of Norfolk’s most vulnerable residents will be deprived of support every year. Mainstream social care services do not have the expertise to provide an alternative.
That is why this specialist unit exists.
How can the Council justify a proposal to target a particular group of disabled people and remove 100% of its funding? This is totally inequitable. The Chief Officers say that they recognise the reputation of the unit locally and nationally and the value placed on its work by service users but it is a ‘Gold Standard’ unit that they can no longer afford. How do you get to from this to nothing?
In its future strategic direction the Council says it wants to look after the most vulnerable people and find out what people need. Not if you are blind, deaf or deafblind apparently.
It says its strategic priority is to have ‘an aspirational people with high levels of achievement and skills’. The 34 staff of the Sensory Support Team must be confused by this statement as they face an uncertain future fearing that their unique skills and years of training are not aspiring enough.
As a qualified social worker who managed and developed the Sensory Support Team from its beginnings until I retired in 2003, I believe that the council should take the time to investigate alternatives to capitalise on the skills of its staff and allay the anxieties of service users who have no idea what will happen after April 2011. The Service took 20 years to develop. Alternatives cannot be found in three months.
There is still time to give your views to Norfolk’s Big Consultation before January 10th and to your local councillors before they decide on February 14th 2011.
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