[Julie86]

Hi, I have finally been on you tube and found biscuit land. I am a little puzzled by the time and task. In my area assessments are no longer done using the time and task approach. Assessments are done based on a Strength based approach. So a social worker asks you what your strengths are and then suggests ways your strengths can be used to meet your needs. This approach on the outset appears more positive but often can be more frustrating. For example a personal example. I need a person to be with me 24 hours per day who can administer an intramuscular injection if needed if i become unwell. Well here came the social worker trying to use my strengths to imply how I could do without support if this medication was removed from my repeat prescription. Still in this crazy loop of social worker and continuing healthcare trying to get the medication taken off my repeat prescription because it is a need that they don’t want to meet.
I personally would have though a strength based assessment would see the medication as a strength to keeping me alive?!

[Mel]

Hey Julie, you raise an important issue, of different locations in the UK having different assessments. From our experience talking to people in different places in the UK this certainly seems true. There seems to be a ‘postcode lottery’ when it comes to many things. For example, we know some people only get £300 towards a wheelchair whereas someone with the same impairment in a more rural area may get £2000. Trickling down of new assessments seems to take an age and is at different speeds at different locations. But underneath all this, it feels like you are saying that what upsets you most is that what is supposed to be better for the disabled person, ends up being worse. We have heard this a lot about person-centred assessments which were supposed to be better too. In these cash strapped times, assessors are looking to cut costs however they can and that can lead to interpreting things differently. We also hear the energy and fatigue that go into fighting to get your needs met and I am sure many on here have the same experience. If you can keep going to get what you need, many people get there in the end if they keep fighting. But it’s important here with our support to acknowledge how much it costs all this fighting, you are not alone…

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by Mel.

[Kim73]

This is interesting, I had not heard of the difference between time/task and strength based assessments before. I have only been assessed by social work once on discharge from hospital and they didn’t use either of these approaches, just a kind of checklist and then a list of “standard” activities they have as their usual care package and fixed call times. It wasn’t really personalised at all to my needs or requirements (although a few things have since been added that I’ve required specifically) but maybe this is different again because it was through hospital discharge rather than community social worker. It is definitely a flawed system as it misses most key aspects of my needs and I’m also in process of trying (and failing) to get proper assessment for the right support, so sympathise with your frustrations at the system!

[Julie86]

I feel a lot of the assessments are designed to catch us out. And the way legislation can be taken the way the councils decides makes it harder for us. We are like Chloe said tonight just a number.

[Mel]

Yes, I think there are many reasons why the welfare state is the way it is, and it goes all the way back to Victorian times, or perhaps even before in history, when they started categorising people and bodies into ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’. Instead of communities looking after each other, now the government has that role and makes the decisions. As a society that unfortunately mostly celebrates and values money, greed and consumerism over love, care and relationships, all the ways we contribute besides employment are often ignored and there just isn’t enough money to go round to support everyone as we should as a society. I think of all the many disabled people I know who can’t ‘do’ a ‘normal’ job, yet contribute in so many amazing ways through volunteering, supporting other disabled people, art and more. Yet this is often ignored. Making the assessment processes as challenging as they are is a way to limit the amount given out as people often give up fighting along the way. I am not sure this is a conscious decision by the government, but it is certainly an unconscious one.

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