The Barnardo's Parent Partnership keyworker service provides a dedicated keyworker to the parents / guardians of disabled children, to help them through the minefield of appointments, red tape, transitions in schooling, when medical, educational, and emotional experiences are completely alien and frightening and overwhelming and heartbreaking. However, it has recently been announced the service will no longer be funded as from April this year.
The council's argument not to renew the contract is that it is a "luxury service" that can no longer be warranted. This demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of what the service does, how successful it is and what ruinous effect its removal will have. Those families who have already been informed are absolutely devastated and wonder what the future holds for them. We understand that these are austere times and that the keyworker service is not a statutory part of the Parent Partnership Service which it is attached to, but this is at best a disastrous false economy by the Children's Health & Family Support Department, and at worst an immensely cruel u-turn in the council's promise not to let the disabled suffer in their budget cuts.
It rather seems to me that it is a LOT less effort and paperwork to cut a small service entirely, than to go through the complicated business of reducing a large and probably over-funded service, to meet the budgeting constraints the council currently faces!
In an email response from Joanne Hewson (Children's Health & Family Support department) this week, she told me "I want to reassure you and families currently supported by the service that we are working with Barnardos to ensure continuity during the transition period and will be talking to parents in the near future". Surely consulting the users of a service during the decision making process is statutory? Her concern for our opinion has come inexcusably late! And because of the timing, we are left precious little time to coordinate any kind of powerful appeal, particularly with us all having our caring responsibilities at home.
The real joke was the council's comments printed in an article printed in The Grimsby Telegraph on Thursday 21st February, which firstly painted the average keyworker to sound more like an au pair rather than a knowledgeable experienced professional in the field of childhood disability! Secondly they tried to claim, for those of the public that obviously cannot know, that the same service can be provided by other already existing services, e.g. the befrienders service.
Let's get one thing clear… the headline "Parents Reassured" - that couldn't be further from the truth if it tried.
If the keyworker service is NOT being closed (a quote from the article), and the "Barnardo's spokesperson" (whoever that was! Nobody seems to know) says they are working closely with NELC re transition, then:
1. why doesn't even the manager of the current Barnardos keyworker service have any idea what's going on or what to tell us parents?
2. why do we the parents not already know who our new keyworkers are going to be? Many of us have upcoming appointments in early April that require a keyworker present / involved, or to coordinate.
3. if there will be a pause in /interruption of provision, why have we not been informed of the likely length of time we will be without the service?
If the powers that be think that a befriender service or suchlike will be an acceptable replacement keyworker service, they are dillusional!! There is NO reassurance in ANY of what the councillor has said. It's utter rubbish. We are still at square one so far as the parents are concerned.
With this unfortunate and rather flippant decision, they will be removing the only person in the entire system and indeed within parents' own friend/family/colleague circles who fully understands our priorities, our requirements from the system at large, and the only person's opinion we truly trust other than our own re our disabled child's well-being, and can help us tread the best possible path towards it. THE ROUTE TO YOUR CHILD'S WELL-BEING IS NOT A LUXURY. THE KEYWORKER SERVICE IS NOT A LUXURY.