Guides and Information

How far did we succeed and what difference did we make?

This section describes how we engaged with our members, partners and citizens to gain information to enhance service provision.

Day Opportunities

We held a large scale day opportunities work shop in September 2022 which was attended by a wide group of stakeholders to participate. The event provided the opportunity for all stakeholders to map out current and future services and activities for Day Opportunities.  They identified service gaps and barriers to accessing services.  They created a development plan in partnership with our third sector organisations to cover the next 12 months of service.

Since this event we have continually provided day opportunities progress updates to our stakeholders through newsletters, forums, provider drop in events and by attending large scale events in Cardiff. We have developed a digital booking platform with our LD champions to ensure it is accessible to everyone. We aim to continually engage with people accessing our services through various forums in the coming months as the project progresses.

Foster Carers

We delivered a regional and local annual calendar of Foster Wales engagement events, which compliments and builds on national activities and events.  These events provide opportunities for us to engage with Foster Carers and their families.  National events include: an annual conference; quarterly seminars on hot topics; Fostering Fortnight activities and attendance to promote fostering at large events such as the Urdd and Royal Welsh.

Regional events include: an Easter egg hunt at Dinefwr; the smallholding show in Builth Wells; Regional Sponsorship of the Urdd and the Pembrokeshire Business network celebration event.

Monthly Network meetings have been established for groups of staff to meet and we hope to include Foster Carers from local support groups in these meetings going forward

Pembrokeshire specific events include a children’s rights day for families, group tea and chats with Foster carers and social workers, a Foster Carer survey and various activity days.

We have Foster carers who are willing to represent others with case studies and quotes, attend virtual events and become pioneers and are looking at how we can further develop opportunities for this.

On a regional level Foster Carers have been given the opportunity to take part in developing their handbook, profiles and members area of the website, all of which are due to go live over the coming months as well as supporting the development, testing and implementation of the Regional online Learning & Development Tool, now adopted by Foster Wales and all 22 Local Authorities.

Nationally Foster carers have been invited to take part a variety of opportunities to develop services such as becoming a pioneer, being on radio and in videos and team mangers have a monthly chance to meet with the Head of Foster Wales.

Comments from our Fostering Families …

• When I started, I signed up for just short term, where you have children for short periods and then they go back to their foster carers.  Testing the water is quite an important part of getting into fostering
• Fostering is a way of life for us now.  I don’t think there is another role on this planet where you can make such a hands on difference to someone’s future.
• I enjoy fostering and sharing my house and family with other children, but I sometimes miss being alone with mum and dad as our house gets very busy.  I think I help mum and dad by making children’s lives and futures brighter.
• I’d like to say thank you on behalf of myself and my siblings for the letter and gift cards.  It’s very kind of you to recognise the role that we play in the lives of the young people that my parents care for.  Fostering is a huge part of our lives and we are grateful for the privilege of being part of the journey.
• Helping children to move onto adoption is so rewarding.  Having a role in forming a brand new family and watching their love and bond blossom is awesome!  And I love the fact that I have lots of little ones all over the country to visit who have a very special place in our hearts
• Fostering can be challenging but the rewards of seeing a child blossom and develop and helping that child become the person they are meant to be is such a joy.

County Show

Social Services had a dedicated marquee at the Pembrokeshire County Show which was held on 17^th, 18^th July 2022.  A range of information factsheets and leaflets were developed for the public to promote services and to attract people to work in the sector.  We also had a range of digital equipment such and more traditional aids and adaptations to show people what is available to support them in their community.

All the services below were represented at the show and a core group of staff were available to answer any queries received.

• Reablement
• Community Wellbeing & Independence Team
• Day Services
• Care Homes
• Community Equipment Store
• Unpaid Carers
• Community Alarms / Digital Tech / Virtual Reality project
• Fostering
• Shared Lives
• Additional Learning Needs Play initiatives
• Day Opportunities
• Norman Industries
• Workways
• Sensory Services
• Social workers and Occupational Therapists across adult services
• Social Care Recruitment  campaign - In Pembrokeshire We Care
• People promoting the 50+ Forum - Age Friendly Strategy
• Representatives from Direct Payments and Personal Assistants promoting their role.

In order to entice people to our marquee, we also arranged a variety of activities for the public to enjoy. This included face painting, a Dementia Choir, and cooking of Welsh Cakes.

Advocacy

There has been a coordinated focus on advocacy in West Wales for a number of years, with the Three Counties Advocacy Network having been in existence for over 12 years. Representing providers of both statutory and non-statutory advocacy services across Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, the Network’s aim is to improve, promote, and develop advocacy services whilst providing training opportunities for those services. This sits alongside an Advocacy Working Group which brings together the commissioners of advocacy services across West Wales, which include Carmarthenshire County Council, Ceredigion County Council and Pembrokeshire County Council.

Our West Wales Advocacy Strategy 2023 – 2027 is based on an extended period of engagement with citizens, especially those who engage with health services, social care services and advocacy organisations.   The strategy is framed by a set of nationally agreed advocacy principles set out in the Social Services and Well-Being Act (Wales).  Engagement began in 2016 and continued through till 2019. It was led by the national Golden Thread Advocacy Programme (GTAP), a project funded by the Welsh Government, to develop effective Local Authority commissioning of the Independent Professional Advocacy services.  Working together with commissioners and the Three County Network, Golden Thread arranged a series of engagement events across the region and service-user groups which culminated in an Open event in Ceredigion in March 2019 with 119 people attending.

Through 2020, a Project Lead within the Regional Advocacy Development Project, held a series of individual discussions and focus groups exploring in more detail how these themes could translate into a detailed strategy.

More recently the Advocacy Working Group felt it was necessary to conduct further engagement to ensure those closest to advocacy services have their voices highlighted prominently within the strategy. Views were gathered via a series of virtual focus group events and also by attending existing forums/groups with stakeholders of advocacy provisions. In this more recent engagement, responses from service-users, carers, organisations delivering advocacy, other stakeholders and health and social care professionals showed a significant level of agreement on key priorities. These aligned closely with the five key findings from the earlier GTAP engagement.

People using advocacy services said …

• “My family help me to explain to Social Workers and Doctors the sort of help I want” - Diane
• “I want to speak up for myself most of the time. I only want support on the big decisions in my life” - Gregg
• I need an advocate who takes time to get to know me” - Matthew

Organisations said …

• “Most advocacy is good but it’s not easy for people to find the right advocacy for them” - Mary
• “People would get better outcomes if advocacy, advice and other forms of support were better joined up” – Paul

Advocates said …

• “I get frustrated that we are not able to make long-term plans to develop our service because our contract is short term and insecure” – Jason
• “If more people were given good and timely information about advocacy, we could provide better advocacy support to those who most need it” - Kelly
• “Social Workers should always consider if a person would benefit from advocacy support” - James

Professionals said …

• “Even before COVID, we had issues with things like access to carers assessments and backlog of waiting lists for carers assessments” – Lorraine
• One person also noted that availability of advocates was an issue

The Adult Advocacy Strategy has five priority areas, all aimed at improving outcomes for people who need advocacy:

• Maintain and develop further our co-productive approach
• Raise awareness of, and understanding of, advocacy.
• Ensure advocacy is easily accessible and equitably available
• Ensure advocacy is of a consistently high standard of quality
• Maintain specialisms and non-statutory forms of advocacy

Voice, participation and responsibility will lead to ensuring that all partners and stakeholders feel that they have shared and collective control and ownership of the improvement actions in the strategy.

Spotlight Awards for Young People

Pembrokeshire Spotlight Awards was held on the 11^th November 2022 at Merlin Theatre, Pembrokeshire College.  The event was ‘For young people by young people’ as we had members of Pembrokeshire Youth Assembly and the Children and Young People’s Rights Office included in the whole process.

We received 138 nominations with Achieving Positive Change, Most inspiring story and Making a Difference in the community being the most popular nomination categories. Nominations were received from social, care, education, foster care families and 3^rd sector organisations.  After a rigorous process, the nominations were narrowed down to 29 nominations including a special spotlight award for a particularly important contribution or achievement.

The nomination categories were:

• Most Inspiring Story
• Achieving Positive Change
• Arts Award
• Eco-Champion Award
• Education Award
• Making a Difference in the Community
• Music Award
• Sports Award
• Having a Voice Award
• Young Leader / Peer Mentoring Award

Presenters of the Awards included:

• County Councillors
• Directors
• Service Mangers
• Athletes
• Co-ordinators and Team Mangers
• With the Head of Children’s Services, Darren Mutter, comparing the event.

After the Awards ceremony, there was an evening of entertainment, fun and food for all of the young people who had been shortlisted. 

What people said about the event …

• This was a really enjoyable night for the whole family.  Thank you.  …
• I would have liked to have heard why each person was nominated. It seemed a very short ceremony.
• Excellent - not a long night for the little ones.
• Ceremony timing was perfect but after part lasted too long would have been better to finish at 8pm
• It was perfect time not too early and not too late.
• It was lush. Had a good selection of award categories.
• It would have been nice to have seen some children's acts / performances.
• I liked the photo booth and magician. 

Most Significant Change

We have continued to develop our Significant Change Model to evaluate our services. Some stories from people who have been supported by community connectors are outlined below.

Flying to the internet

I have terminal cancer, I live alone with no relatives. I went into hospital a year ago with a lung infection and pneumonia (which wasn’t Covid). When I came out, I was lucky to have someone getting shopping for me. I hadn’t used the internet or a computer before. Now I am stronger I am keen to learn how to use it as everything seems to be online now.

I borrowed a tablet from Pembrokeshire Association of Voluntary Services not knowing if I’d get on with it. I picked it up quitequickly with help from my community connector. I started off with emails and some jigsaw and wordsearch apps. Quite quickly I decided I was enjoying this, so I arranged to have Broadband installed. I feel more in touch with the world now. I have joined the ‘Next-door – Neighbourhood’ group and I plan to do online shopping.

I’ve had anxiety and can’t face sorting out some of my belongings that are piled up in my house. I’ve found that doing the jigsaws and word-searches very beneficial, they clear my head and help me sleep and now I have managed to tackle some of the jobs I couldn’t do before.

Having the tablet has helped me gain confidence in life as well as online.

Helping others provided unexpected benefits

I was contacted by the community connector to ask if I would consider offering some free IT support as my local hall (Letterston) was open with the warm rooms scheme. I agreed to come along for the whole day. I like to use my experience to help people as I like meeting people and I am mostly working so it is a break from the monotony of my every day routine. No-one teaches people to service a computer – you wouldn’t do that with a car but it is similar in that it needs maintenance. I am interested in how other people perceive computers. I have grown up with this sort of technology and I know that there isn’t the sort of support that I offer out there. I enjoy solving problems – a challenge gives me intellectual stimulation. I can spend hours working to find a solution, I don’t like to give up and as I am semi-retired I have that luxury. I like talking to people to find out what they like to do with their computer so I can make suggestions appropriate for their use. After the first session I ran, which was very popular, I offered to come back again as I had really enjoyed it, so I am now doing these monthly. Sitting here in the hall I have the time to ask people what problems they are having but I also like to explain the technology behind how it works – I like imparting some knowledge to them so they go away with more than just a fixed computer. In the current society everyone is struggling for money so I am happy to help with my specialist knowledge.

I have repaired some people’s laptops and this has given me the chance to meet some new people and hopefully make some friends, which is an unexpected bonus.

100 not out

My husband died a few years ago – I was very happy and miss him enormously. He was very interested in the war and military history – we have memorabilia around the house including models. He also loved cricket and played at Lords – I have a big framed photograph on my wall. I am from London and I worked as a dress maker from the age of 14. I met my husband as he was in the services with my cousin. I was one of 6 children in my family but I am the only one left now. I have a good neighbour who gets my shopping and takes me to the doctor but I do feel lonely.

I attend the senior citizen’s lunch which I enjoy but I feel a bit of an outsider here as they all seem to know each other and I don’t know who they are talking about. I have met a lovely young woman who does my hair – she comes every week. We have the same birthday and we hit it off straight away.

I had some visits from Kevin from the VC gallery. I like talking about the war and enjoy chatting to him, then he surprised me with plans for my 100th birthday. I can’t believe I am 100! My favourite part of that was being picked up in the Rolls Royce. I have some good friends from England and they came up for my birthday too.

Engagement with our Council Members

During 2022/23 we continued to operate a dedicated Overview and Scrutiny Committee for Social Care.  This enables a more comprehensive approach to the scrutiny of social care practices and service delivery.  Members scrutinised our performance with regard to workforce planning, our preventions work, the West Wales Care Partnership and many other topics throughout the year.  More information on this committee including agendas and minutes is available on the council web site.

We also held a number of member’s seminars.  These provide an opportunity to give members detailed information on a number of key areas such as safeguarding and workforce development.

Provider and Stakeholder Engagement

During 2022/23 we held numerous engagement sessions with stakeholders, providers and care workers to find solutions together to reduce fragility of the care market and also strengthen recruitment and increase retention of the workforce. As a result a fee model has been established that sees care workers paid above the real living wage, providers paying care workers on a shift based model and providers paid fees that take account of travel to those people they support and care for in urban and more rural areas of Pembrokeshire.