Q & A on the Solihull Way to Making it Real

Caroline Speirs, Making it Real Lead at TLAP interviewed Ian James, Director for Communities and Adult Social Care Communities and Adult Social Care Directorate at Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council on their approach toMaking it Real.

Why did Solihull sign up to Making it Real?

Solihull Council signed up to the Making it Real programme to show our enthusiasm for Engagement, Involvement and Co-production across every part of the business. Paramount to success was making sure that there was diversity of experience and involvement from early stages of business planning right through to the shaping of the delivery and monitoring activity.

We were initially motivated by feedback from a Peer Challenge in December 2012 which recommended that: involve people more in what we do.

As a Council we have made clear that our purpose is to be a Council that is about "Lives not Services". The Making It Real (MIR) framework shaped by TLAP offered us a real opportunity to improve how we go about making that a reality.

What did you do?

We invited individuals who were using our services, or caring for someone at home, to help us embed a Making It Real (MIR) approach to our work. With no pre-determined outcome we asked them what they wanted. They gave us four clear messages. Using these themes we supported the group, known as Experts by Experience, to develop MIR practice in Solihull, with an allocated initial budget of £20K. Their themes shaped our MIR Strategy and developed our simple policy for working with Experts: they are involved in everything we do from the beginning.

The four messages:

"Hear our voices" 'Work harder to listen to people's stories.'

'Listen to people who felt let down, who were isolated or frustrated... and the people who wouldn't normally come forward to share their views.'

In April 2013 we had a launch event where we recruited out Experts. and we invited voluntary sector partners to publicise the Experts by Experience programme and we recruited people who had initiated complaints in relation to their care services. We recognised that we needed to ensure that Solihull's Experts were drawn from traditionally under-represented groups, including people from BME communities, people affected by mental health problems and those from disadvantaged communities, to honour our commitment to listen to all our citizens and make sure their voices could be used to bring real positive change to what we do.

"Include us - in the big stuff, too!"

We involved people from the beginning and throughout our planning and commissioning processes. and provided support and information to our workforce to win over some initial reluctance(!) and to further establish co-production as part of The Solihull Way.

A project group, including four Experts, supported by a project manager, shaped the development of our MiR work. Experts joined all of our transformation projects,and as new projects are identified Experts continue to join work streams which use their insights most effectively. Additionally, Experts sat on our overall ASC change programme's 'Transformation Board' - which has oversight of all our Putting Solihull People First activity.

"Value us - as equal partners"

'Change the dynamic between professionals and people who use services.'

Responding to this, we began building a genuine partnership: Experts participated in an extensive (and co-produced) learning and development programme. They shared their knowledge and gained a broader understanding of public sector funding and decision-making, social care provision and the legal and policy framework which underpins our duties and objectives. This enabled individuals to work confidently with strategic and operational staff. Investing in our Experts' learning and support is a high priority. For example, multi-agency collaboration is helping them to contribute in diverse ways by enabling them to deliver dementia care training, Direct Payment Peer Support and Peer-to-Peer Support Planning.

"Use us - we can help"

Notwithstanding their own sometimes difficult journeys, Experts were keen to get involved to contribute to positive change. Julie Hackett, Commissioning Manager, describes how one Expert, James, drawing on his own experience, has advised on the involvement of young people with special educational needs in council activity: "he is keen to mentor young disabled people to be involved in this work and is meeting with the Chair to suggest how the Board can be more accessible to disabled young people and how their views are better represented."

What difference has Making it Real made?

Experts are supporting all our key changes from service re-design, commissioning activity for specific services, interviewing staff, tenders and consultations about future services. Experts by Experience have driven change on some of their own priorities. Examples of co-production include:

encouraging people take up Direct Payments and use Telecare and Assistive Technology to keep independent;

working on Care Act work streams, including integrated provision with Partners eg: ICASS (Solihull for Better Lives) programme;

working alongside the Care Quality Monitoring team to measure services provided in people's homes meet our quality standards;

Involving experts in the Carers Strategy and reviews to ensure more support is available for Carers and Carers are recognised for their valuable role;

being part of team who devised the dementia strategy and dementia packs. Assisted in the design and delivery of Dementia Awareness training to the public and Council staff, Residential Home Pilot Dementia training;

Leading transition workshops with parents to discuss concerns and issues and help prepare them and their children (from Special Schools) for the future. Their views are being fed into the Council to help improve the processes and ways of working going forward;

Working with the Solihull Multi-Faith Forum to reach out to people living in Solihull who are living with dementia.

Experts will be supporting community capacity building to support the development of skills, and boost individual's confidence to enable them to support themselves and their peers in everyday tasks such as advocacy. By doing this we make people identified as vulnerable more resilient and thereby less dependant on Council services.

Making It Real across our organisation

Across the Council the commitment to further increase co-production has underpinned the success of this programme, with enthusiastic leadership and sponsorship to MIR and the Experts:

Co-production is challenging to those of us who work in public services. At first Staff tended to look at you a bit strangely and say - why are we doing this? Then they start to get it and before long they can't get enough of it. Now all staff want to work with our Experts!