Transcript

Hameed

When I first accessed social work services, I was overwhelmed because it’s quite a difficult system to understand. However, with the support of various other people who had been through the system, they encouraged me and supported me to know that social work services are actually there for my best interest and not there to make my life difficult, but to help me to have a better life.

Sometimes, I got it wrong. I was expecting more than what they could offer. And at times, I was surprised in what they were offering because I didn’t realise they could offer that as part of a support package. It was a time of excitement, knowing that I’m going to get their support, time of anxiousness, not knowing what I’m going to be offered, and also feeling overwhelmed with the systems that you don’t have an understanding of.

Sadly, my first experience when I got sectioned was not because I wanted to. It was not because of choice. It was done because of law. The law said I needed to be admitted to hospital. So law doesn’t always come across as positive, even though it might be done for your best interest. But at times, it can come across as a way of controlling and commanding and taking people’s liberties away from them.

Going back, looking at in hindsight, it could be done in a different style. It was almost done like, we are going to take you. And if you don’t come, we’re going to take you by force. I think, later on, it was the same thing done, but in a different style, where I would have said, you can either go with us voluntary – that offers you choice, and you can get a second opinion – or we can section you. And you think, I’ll take the voluntary option by going by choice. You felt a little bit more empowered.

Peter

I’d been very ill. And I’d been in hospital for a while. And when I came home, the effects of the operation and the longer-term effects had changed quite considerably. And so somebody said to me that I might be eligible to claim what was then Disability Living Allowance, which then became Personal Independence Payment.

And a social worker from the Money Advice Unit came and went through the form. And she just went through the form, just sort of, can you do this? Can you not do something else? Tick, tick, tick. And then went away. And I didn’t get PIP. There was no real relationship. There was not really a sense in which she’d got into my life, if you like.

When you first access services, you’re in a foreign territory. You don’t know anything, really. You don’t understand how the system works. You’re always kind of thinking, is there more? Should I be doing more? Should I be doing something different? Is there some other service that I might be accessing? For me, it was really kind of scary.

At the beginning, you feel very, very vulnerable because not only are you trying to manage a situation in a practical and emotional sense, but also, you’re trying to access the help that you think is out there. You know, to some extent, you’ve got to be quite proactive in order to get those services. And it’s probably not going to happen that somebody’s going to pitch up and say, oh, hi, I’m a social worker, and I want to help you. You know you’ve probably got to go out there and do it. And at the time, we certainly were not feeling in a strong enough position to do that. So it’s quite – it was a very difficult process, actually.

Carolyn

Mmm. Yeah, it was quite a different experience for me, accessing social services for Mum, because, by then, I’d fought a lot of battles over our daughter’s health and met with different multi-agencies and had to go into hospitals and speak to all sorts of different people. So I was more ready, in a sense, for it. And I felt more in control in that I knew a bit more of the system and had done a lot more research as to what would be the way forward because my mother’s own GP was not admitting or accepting that she actually had dementia. And I had to push because I knew.

She was brilliant, absolutely brilliant at putting on a show. Whenever she went to the GP, she suddenly got adrenaline and managed to answer all the questions and be lively and OK. And then, for the rest of the month, she was not remembering things and confused and leaving doors open and inviting anybody in and – very big safeguarding thing. So we had to push. And social services came to do assessments. And that was very helpful.

When I found out that there’s an organisation that helps carers, and they suggested having an annual carer’s assessment, then I asked for it. And in the early days, they were very easy to get. They would come out to your flat and talk to you. And that was, on the whole, a very good experience. But latterly, it’s been much more difficult. And then, obviously, during COVID, it had to be on the phone.

When I asked for a carer’s assessment, when I first found out about them, I wasn’t aware at all about legislation, policies, anything like that that was undergirding it. It was just an offer of help. And they rang up and said, oh, we can offer you some vouchers to help – therapy vouchers, massages for stress, amazing things. And they had a little group that did outings once or twice a year for carers. And that’s how it seemed.

But I did have to start looking into it because things changed. And they started telling me that I wasn’t entitled to things. And I asked, under what legislation were we operating? And I got sent some of the Care Act, which is enormous anyway, but some relevant pages. And I really started looking into it. And then I spoke to a couple of social workers. And I had to really go into it to find out exactly what they were offering me and why they started to refuse to offer things. Things changed a lot. I was assuming it was all down to budgets, and I still believe it is or was.

So I, on that one, looked into the Care Act a lot. And with Mum, we looked at deprivation of liberties, didn’t we, when she got very, very bad in the home. And they were wanting to move her out of one home into another, when we had sold her house, and all the money had been spent. And she had privately funded herself. And there was not any money left. And they wanted to move her into a much less quality home. But because she had certain needs, and this home were meeting them, we had to look at, were they contravening her –

Peter

Care, I think.

Carolyn

Care. Yeah, that was the Care Act again, wasn’t it?

Karen

I find social services, actually, to be one of the better aspects of mental health services. And obviously social services covers a wide variety of different areas of practise. And mental health is only one of those. But I always had got the distinct impression from the social workers that I did work with that they were values-driven. They genuinely wanted to help me as a person. And they saw me as a person. And I want to probably credit that particular service that involved that multidisciplinary team, including the social care team.

So was I happy with services that I used? Not always, no. On the other hand, then, you do meet people who change your life around. It’s almost like the good teacher at school. I had a miserable seven years at high school. But there was one guy who was just brilliant.

And the social worker at the Personality Disorder Service that I met on a one-to-one basis was absolutely fantastic. I really do credit them with my being here today. He didn’t work in isolation. But he was the one that worked with me on a one-to-one basis. So good eggs and bad eggs, mixed experiences. But ultimately, it came good in the end.

I saw a lot of people in the course of my psychiatric career – a lot. But this one fella stands out in my mind. The entire service he worked with stands out in my mind, but him in particular. The key message from that, I think, is that one good person doing one potentially relatively small thing can make a huge difference.