Family Support Providers
Good family support is vital not just for people with learning disabilities but their carers as well. To ensure that Learning Disability Wales is up-to-date and informed with the issues in this field our Family Support trustee position is held by Alan Southerns from the Wales Carers Alliance.
The Wales Carers Alliance is made up of major organisations that either provide services or campaign for carers and carer issues. Supporting individuals with learning disabilities are therefore only one aspect.
The Alliance focuses more on the family and family support requirements than the more specific issues relating to the person being cared for.
The family issues around carers supporting people with a learning disability are often more long term than the issues of care around age and specific illness as the individual with learning disabilities may often need care and support from birth, through childhood, transition to adulthood, adult life to old age, and after the immediate carer has passed on.
The Alliance is therefore especially interested in the development of ‘transition’ (child into adulthood- school into work), supported housing and sustaining support to the individual beyond the life of the natural carer.
The Alliance also considers government initiatives that are aimed at supporting carers but may have an effect on bodies/organisations set up to support carers. One such example is the development of ‘Direct Payments’. This is an initiative that the Alliance fully supports as it can offer choice and independence to the individual. However for a service provider it can increase insecurity in funding arrangements, and create new challenges which may increase service provision costs at a time when new tendering arrangements make it necessary for service providers to be more competitive and cost conscious.
We see Learning Disability Wales as the organisation who will lead on finding the information needed to develop campaign action in the field of learning disability and who will, where appropriate, also be the leading voice on the development of services and good practices in providing support for people with learning disabilities.
WHAT WE DO …
The Wales Carers Alliance is established to promote the recognition and support of carers in Wales. The Alliance comprises national or significant regional voluntary sector organisations in Wales which have declared policies on carer support and seek to work together to establish the legislative, policy, resource and service framework to provide support to carers in Wales.
The Alliance organisations are committed to joint action to:
- Discuss and, as far as possible, to define common policies on carer support. Where a consensus can be established, Alliance members are committed to present and act upon agreed policy statements;
- To act as a forum where carer issues can be discussed and in particular those issues that are pertinent to the work of national and regional voluntary organisations in Wales;
- Lobby policy makers, planners and other key decision makers on consensus carer issues;
- Exchange ideas and information on the work of member and other organisations;
- Comment on, support or oppose proposals, papers and other documents offered for consultation;
- Monitor the development and implementation of carer support policies nationally and at county and local levels;
- Work with professional, statutory and voluntary agencies to define priorities for service development in the context of resource constraints and opportunities;
- Promote effective and active liaison, co-operation and collaboration between support agencies;
- Support carer group development programmes and especially the Carers UK programme in Wales, providing representation and active participation on the Wales Committee of Carers Wales;
- Promote the development and recognition of a forum for carers in Wales.
Contact details
Wales Carers Alliance, c/o Carers Wales, River House, Ynysbridge Court, Gwaelod-y-Garth, Cardiff, CF15 9SS
Tel: 029 2081 1370 Fax: 029 2081 1575
