Proposal for an all-age disability Service - consultation

Message from Balwinder Kaur

For many years we have been told by parent carers, children and adults with a disability that joined up services across all ages would help to ensure consistency, clarity and ultimately better quality services and support to people living in Kirklees with a disability.

The time is now right to take a good look at what this means as part of our New Council approach.

The All Age Disability Programme reports to the Early Intervention Programme Board and ultimately the New Council Programme Board.

The aim of the work is to reshape teams that currently work with children and adults with a disability to become an all age disability service – one that maximises the independence of children and young people in preparation for adult life here in Kirklees.

Where are we at?

We are about to start the early stages of the engagement work.

This work will include talking to staff , our partners and people with a disability, their families and carers, asking them for their views on what is important to them, what is not, and what an ideal all age disability service would feel and look like to them.

Healthwatch are helping us to take forward this work and will be launching an online survey to the public on Monday 16 November. There will also be face to face discussions, workshops and information in easy read format.

You can access the survey here

Healthwatch Kirklees is an independent organisation that gathers and represents the views of adults, young people and children living in Kirklees who receive health and social care services.

What next?

We will be exploring the opportunity of an all age disability service further and this is where the public engagement will help.

The engagement work will help us understand the experiences of people with disabilities who use our services. We know that many people with disabilities don’t receive support from the council and live life without support from us. They are welcome to take part too. All the feedback will help us understand what is important to people so we can shape our new approach. 

The report from this work will be available in February and will help inform some of the detailed work. 

Your help please

We want as many people as possible to get involved and have their say.

And we need your help to promote the survey online when it goes live on Monday.

We are already talking to a number of groups including parents of children with additional needs and the partnership boards, which are made up of carers and people who use services.  This doesn’t mean they can’t have their say via the online survey, so please don’t worry about asking anyone or any group to take part.

Please help us spread the word by sharing this link with your colleagues and networks.

Need more information?

Please contact [email protected]

Thank you very much