What is a support plan?

Once you've had a Care Act assessment and have been assessed as eligible we must set out how your eligible needs and goals are going to be met to live the life you want in a support plan. You need to be involved with support planning to make the important decisions about the support you need to help you live the life you want. 

A support plan should detail the support you'll have and how it will help you live life. It should refer to the specifics of your direct payment, ie how much it will be and what it will be used for. Support plans should include any informal (unpaid) support that family/friends are able and willing to provide.

You can write a support plan yourself, or with the help of family/an advocate. We'd like to keep a copy of it. Your social worker will still need to write one, to be stored on our database, to allocate money through our finance systems. You'll be given a copy.

Support Planning

What needs to be in a support plan?

  • You should have a conversation with your social care worker and if appropriate with your advocate or family member about planning your support
  • Think about what's important to and for you (your strengths, activities you enjoy, who and what makes the biggest difference to your life)
  • What's working
  • What's not working. How can it change? What do you need to change it?
  • What others need to know about you to support you well
  • Risks

The support plan should describe how your support will be organised and managed. It should record who will manage the direct payment if you need help with it. Writing a one-page profile can help. Your support plan will be individual to you and your goals. Individual goals are linked to eligibility, for example:

  • Help with getting dressed ready for work in the morning
  • Learning with support how to prepare your meals safely
  • Having support to access a college course
  • Accessing a gym regularly to give you a break from your caring role

Agreement 

We need to agree to fund the cost of the support in your plan. You'll also be financially assessed to see if you have a contribution to make

We'll send you a copy of your support plan to check that you're happy with it, to sign it if you are, and to keep a copy so that you're aware of what was agreed. You’ll then know the support you're going to have, how frequent it is and what it will cost. Most importantly you should know why you're getting this support and the goals you're working towards.  

There's a direct payment agreement which you need to read and sign. It sets out the expectations between you and the council of having a direct payment.

A direct payment gives more flexibility to change your support when you need to.  

Handshake

Can I change my plan?

A direct payment gives more flexibility to change your support when you need to.

Some examples

1. You employ two PAs. One of them hands in their notice. You can now choose whether to offer the other PA additional hours or you can choose to employ another PA. Since there's no change in the PA hourly rate you can do this without talking to us. 

2. You use a care agency for some hours but have been unhappy with the level of service provided. After talking with the agency and seeing no improvement you decide to change agency. Providing any other agency doesn’t charge an additional rate you can give the current agency notice and purchase support from another agency of your choice. (If funding needs to be increased this would need to be discussed with us). 

3. Your PA is unable to support you today, but you have an important appointment that you can’t change. Your PA was going to provide transport to take you. You can use the one-off emergency facility in your direct payment to pay for a taxi to take you to and from your appointment.  

4. You sometimes use residential respite to give your family a short break. However, the residential placement is unable to take you due to an infection affecting some people staying there. It isn’t safe for you to go. Instead of using residential respite you can look at getting 24/7 support from your PA, and either stay at home while your family go away or look at an appropriate holiday let where you and the PA can stay. The costs would need to be like the cost of residential respite, or you would need to speak to us about it.