Beverley Compton: Hi I'm Bev Compton. I'm the executive director for Adult Services and Health for East Riding. Adult Service is quite a big directorate, we consume quite a lot
of the council's resources in providing services for all adults over the age of 18 who have particular needs.
The department is organized into four areas, so I'm supported by Lee Thompson, who's my Deputy; Gareth Everson who very much focuses on prevention and well-being; Jess Cross who looks after safeguarding and locality-based working, and Emma Smith, who specializes in mental health and learning disability services.
So just to say for East Riding, we have a mixture of services that are either bought from external providers; so typically, Residential Care Homes and care services at home but we
also have a number of services that are owned and run by East Riding Council and so you will hear us talking about our own residential provision. Lee Thompson, in addition to being my deputy, has a broad role in terms of buying those services from our local markets but also in working with our partners in the NHS, where we do a lot of work to try and
integrate Services more for the benefit of users.
So a lot of you might not know much about adult social care, so you probably will be aware that we do have an older population, most areas do have an ageing population, but adult
social care isn't just for older people; because we have a growing, older population though, we are trying to do a lot more work around prevention and well-being, so typically we have a front door and information and advice that we provide to people to help them help themselves, to give them good quality advice so they can go away and sort out their own needs. We provide a lot of low-level technology and support, so for example, some of you might be aware we provide a Lifeline service, so you probably understand that people perhaps wear a pendant or a bracelet, which can therefore provide an alarm or an alert if something happens at home and they can be contacted straight away with some support advice or information; we can dispatch a service using that, so it's very popular and quite an important part of our prevention offer, that gives people the reassurance to continue to live at home on their own or give family reassurance that their loved one is going to be better supported if something happens. Right the way through to more intense levels of service for
people who might have for example a learning disability, Dementia, or mental health needs. So the whole approach we're trying to develop in East Riding is around ensuring people can be as independent as they want to be, ensuring that people can have as normal or as usual a life as they would like, and to do that in a way that meets their own particular
preferences and needs; so you'll hear us talking a lot about independence, a lot about well-being, and in shorthand we sort of say we really like to keep them at home, safe, well, and supported, rather than in more intense levels of support, if we can.
So, in terms of your new roles and where you might come across social care or where you might want to help people, we have a website called Your Life Your Way, where there's a wealth of information so you can signpost people to that website, where they can find out more about what they're entitled to, or what is available in the area. Or you might come across people who've got caring responsibilities, so they're looking after somebody else, maybe son or daughter, maybe husband or wife, or other family friends or relatives, so we provide a lot of support to the carers themselves, to help them continue with those caring responsibilities.
And when we move forward with the induction program with you, we'll be sharing more details about the ways in which you might be approached by members of the community, and the ways in which you might therefore signpost them to the help and support and that they need.
