Brent Council’s critical carers will be hitting the front-line fully
protected with personal protection equipment (PPE) to help stop the
spread of Covid-19.
Around 1.6 million gloves and aprons were dropped off at the
Council’s headquarters in what was a military-style operation over the
weekend. A further two hundred and eighty thousand masks will be
delivered this week.
This will help shield approximately 2,250 vulnerable over-70s
across 180 nursing and residential homes, and those who receive care at
home in Brent.
This critical supply will help ‘shield’ vulnerable residents for the next 3 to 6 months.
It will also protect around 23,000 care staff across the London Borough of Brent.
Note: I have asked Brent Press Office if this is also going to be distributed to agency carers and staff looking after the children of keyworkers (including NHS staff) and vulnerable children in schools and nurseries.
I have not had a response yet but Brent Council tweeted this last night:
Meanwhile the Council has posted this video from Brent's Director of Children's Services:
The Memory Lounge launches at Preston Community Library on Monday June 11th with special guests The Wrinklers plus talks, information and refreshments.
This is the only group in the area offering a three pronged approach to helping those in the area who are a) concerned about their memory, b) are a carer, and c) affected by Dementia.
The Community Library us on Carlton Avenue East, just off Preston Road, opposite the Preston pub. Nearest station Preston Road (Metropolitan line).
The speech by Ken Knight on behalf of relatives and carers of Tudor Gardens residents
The deregistration of the Tudor Gardens Residential Home was the most emotional issue discussed at yesterday's Cabinet. The proposals were covered in an earlier posting HERE.
There was a calm but passionate presentation by Ken Knight whose sister is a resident at Tudor Gardens. He sought to demonstrate that an original Equality impact assessment which had found a negative impact on residents of the proposed changes had been changed to a positive one, with the original not made available to Cabinet.
He said the change went well beyond 'updating' as a result of further consultations, although that was contested by Phil Porter, Strategic Director of Adult Social Care, and suggested the documentation had been 'doctored'.
In a briefing pack supplied by Knight he contrasted: The policy will have a positive impact on residents because it will promote independence and give choice and control how they live their lives. to the original 'This policy will have a negative impact on clients who have no capacity to make decision.
Knight noted, 'Relatives and carers don't believe any resident has this capacity, Aga Ambroziak thinks some might. We want high quality, objective, functional asessmewnts (like the WHO ICF), carried out by an independent clinical psychologist, to settle matters before anything else happens.
Knight said that the residents who had the mental capacity of a 3 to 4 year old, did not need to be given any more 'choice' than they had in the home already: they needed safeguarding and the 24-7 care that they had already.
He said the manager of Tudor Gardens had already left because as a result of the changes she would have lost £20,000 in salary. Other care workers stood to lose £10,000. Protection through TUPE regulations did not apply as most workers were on fixed term contracts. The proposed new contractor had boasted that their staff were on zero hours contracts.
Cllr Mashari said that she was concerned about the Equality Impact assessment and asked if it was usual for them to go from a negative to positive impact in the public domain. Christine Gilbert said that there were attempts to mitigate the negatives revealed at the first stage of the assessment but did not know about a move from negative to positive.
Cllr Hirani, lead member for Adult Care said that savings were on housing costs, residents would be entitled to Housing Benefits under the new arrangements, and not on care. He recognised the importance of safeguarding. He said that the Council needed to reduce spending and at the same time cater for more people. The Council would help the residents apply for allowances that could give them £4,000 more income annually. They would also have security of tenure.
Cllr Southwood asked for reassurance around the safeguarding of vulnerable adults and was told that there would be a team to monitor the required standards and that the changes should have no impact on the quality of care.
Cllr Mashari appeared to still have doubts. She asked if there was a detailed record of the 'journey from negative to positive' and suggested that in the light of the issues involved the item should be revisited.
Cllr Pavey said he did not think that was necessary and that officers would supply a note on the Equality Impact Assessment changes.
Cllr Mashari asked for an update on progress in six months time.
Ken Knight summed up the relatives' and carers' case to the Cabinet:
Right at the beginning of this process relatives and carers said they were opposed to supported living and wanted the residential care home to stay as it is BUT that if change was forced upon us we would do our best to ensure the best possible future for the residents of Tudor Gardens. this remains the case. in return officers promised transparency, openness, honesty and that we would be working together. I leave you to judge if this has been delivered.
At the very least, and before you vote on it, can this process be paused for internationally recognised functional assessments to be done by an independent clinical psychologist, with full involvement of relatives, cares and Tudor Gardens staff.
Voting for supported living now means paying people to make decisions for residents who can't do it for themselves by virtue of their lack of mental capacity. It obviously won't give them 'more independence, choice and control' - it'll just hand it over to different people. Those who exercise this power now on their behalf have proved themselves care, trustworthy, altruistic, reliable and competent. That's why we want to keep them. There are no guarantees we will if supported living goes ahead.
It seemed very clear from last night's discussion and a conversation with the Tudor Gardens Unison representative that the retention of staff trusted by residents and their relatives and carers is unlikely.
Brent Council says that places are filling up fast for its special educational needs
(SEN) conference at Brent Civic Centre on 29th January 2014.
This is a free event for parents and carers to find out more
about new reforms that will change the way that the Council provide services
for children with SEN.
It also includes:
a keynote address from Brian Lamb, a former government advisor
and senior director at Scope and RNID (Action on Hearing Loss), now
a consultant in SEN and disability issues
a panel discussion and question and answer session with Brent
head teachers and representatives from education, health and social
services
the opportunity to browse a variety of stalls and stands from
local and national charities that support children with SEN
a free lunch with a vegetarian option.
The conference takes place from 9am to 2.30pm.
Places are available on a first come, first served basis and can
be booked now by calling 020 8937 4901 or email robert.smith@brent.gov.uk.
This letter to Michael Gove from parents of yet another school that is being forced to become an academy, demonstrates just how governors, staff and parents are being trampled on:
Dear Mr Gove,
We are a group of parents whose children attend Thomas Gamuel Primary School (TGPS) in Walthamstow, east London.We
are writing to object to the Department for Education’s decision to
force TGPS into Sponsored Academy status, ignoring the objections of the
parents, carers, teachers, support staff and governing body
:• 95 per cent of parents returning a ballot voted against academy status (60 per cent of parents voted)• 85 per cent of teachers voted against converting • The governing body unanimously voted against becoming a sponsored academy.
We
understand that the local authority has this week applied to
you 'for consent to constitute the governing body of Thomas Gamuel
Primary School as an Interim Executive Board (IEB) in accordance with
Schedule 6 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006'. We strongly
object to this application to dissolve a governing body that has made a
decision the local authority disagree with.
We have met with our
local MP Stella Creasy and our local councillor Clare Coghill to try and
get some answers. We now write to you to outline our major objections
and to ask that you reject the local authority’s application and allow
the school to continue on its current path to improvement:
1. We are not a failing school. Ofsted
inspected TGPS in April 2012. They rated the school ‘inadequate’,
mainly due to an administrative error, informing the governing body two
months after the inspection at the end of the summer term. Ofsted
allocated a timetable
for improvement between June 2012 and April 2013 (nine months).
Ofsted’s interim monitoring report in November 2012 (three months into
the plan) said the school was making ‘satisfactory progress’ in
implementing its improvement plan. The monitoring report specifically
noted that the administrative error which had caused the 'requires
improvement' rating in April 2012 had now been fully resolved.The
DfE states on its website that: 'When schools have been underperforming
for a long time, decisive action is needed to raise standards and ensure
that the children in these schools are able to achieve their full
potential.'TGPS’ previous two Ofsted reports (2009 and 2006) rated
the school 'good' with 'outstanding' aspects. We do not understand why
one unsatisfactory Ofsted report classes us as ‘underperforming for a
long time’
2. Teaching standards are improving. We are aware
that teaching standards in the school need to be
raised. The parents and carers are confident that this is being
achieved. The teachers and support staff, and the governing body are
confident, indeed even Ofsted is confident - as it reported in its
monitoring inspection in November 2012. Why then is the DfE forcing TGPS
to rush into Sponsored Academy status?The DfE states: 'Wherever
possible, the Department will seek to find solutions to raising
standards that everyone can agree on - as has been the case with the
vast majority of the schools that have become academies. Where
under performance is not being tackled effectively the Secretary of State
does have powers to intervene to help ensure standards are raised.'The
School Improvement Plan in place is tackling underperformance - and we
as parents can see the visible results of this. We are all committed to
this plan and want the DfE to allow the plan to run the course of its
original timetable (April 2013).As stated earlier, the parents
of children at the school have voted overwhelmingly against sponsored
academy status. The school governing body have voted against it. The
teachers at the school are against it. How is the DfE seeking to find a
solution that ‘everyone can agree on’?
3. We are not being consulted. Since
October 2012 the DfE has been consistently applying pressure to TGPS’
governing body to agree to conversion to sponsored academy status. The
Local Education Authority is now also applying pressure, regardless of
the fact that the improvement plan’s original timetable – agreed by
Ofsted – has not expired.The governing body originally voted
against making a decision without consulting parents and chose instead
to focus on improving teaching standards within the school. When they
did consult with us, they listened and voted with us. The local
authority is now planning to take away the only body that truly has our
children’s best interests at
heart.We want the original school improvement plan and timetable – ratified by Ofsted – to stand. The changes that have already been implemented need time to embed.We want to make an informed, unrushed decision about our future status. A proper consultation – with all the facts about what the change will actually mean – needs to take place. We would like a choice of sponsor. There has been a lack of transparency of the criteria used by the DfE/local authority to choose the proposed sponsor.
Thank you again for your time and attention.
Yours sincerely
TGPS Parents Say No (Representing the voice of the majority of parents and carers at Thomas Gamuel Primary School)
Parents and carers are determined to make Michale Gove listen
The parents campaign against the forced conversion of Gladstone Park Primary School to a sponsored academy swung into action this week. A website has been set up HEREand a Facebook page HERE
Brent Green Party has written to the campaign pledging its support and stating:
We believe that the DfE’s action is disproportionate, destructive and dictatorial...We wish you well in your efforts to retain Gladstone Park Primary as a well regarded, democratically accountable, local authority school at the heart of the local community.
Save Gladstone Park Primary School has published the press release below setting out their case:
Gladstone
Park Primary School in Brent (North-west London) is being strong-armed
into becoming an academy within weeks of receiving an ‘Inadequate’ Ofsted grade despite inspectors recognising some areas of strength.
Staff and parents were told in January that the school, which had had
its previouly ‘good’ performance sustained by Ofsted in 2011, will be
fast-tracked for academy conversion after being judged as ‘inadequate’
just before the Christmas holidays, under the new Ofsted rules
introduced in September 2012.
A letter from the DfE’s ‘Brokerage and School Underperformance Division’,
dated 24 January, informed School Governors that an academy sponsor
would be put forward by 11 February. Consultation will only take place after the deal with the Department’s nominated sponsor is secured.
Tactics employed by
the consultant contractor working for the DfE include a forced
withholding of the sponsor decision for five weeks, during which
pressure was brought to bear on the school governors to convert;
extremely short deadlines being imposed and a refusal to consider any
involvement by the Governors or the school on potential sponsors.
Parents, of course, have not been consulted.
Parents,
carers and staff at the school in Dollis Hill have launched a campaign
against what they perceive to be a politically-driven, disproportionate
and undemocratic rush to academy conversion. They argue that the school
had already identified the areas of weakness referred to in the Ofsted
report and was already addressing them (a point Ofsted also mentioned in their report), and that it is important for the school community to have final say on its future governance.
Ishani Salpadoru, parent of an eight year-old pupil at the school said:
We do not recognise our children’s day-to-day experience in the Ofsted
report. Over 90% of parents said they would recommend this school to
others in the Parentview survey. We feel we’re being steamrollered into
academy status, with no influence whatsoever on our children’s future.’
Other parents are
concerned that forced academy conversion will create unnecessary
upheaval and uncertainty, and are sceptical about academy status
providing a panacea. Greta Kemper, parent of two children at the school
commented:
We chose to send our kids to this school because it was a
good community school. We liked the ethos, and we believed – and still
believe – that it is a good school. Now a seismic change is being
forceably imposed on the school and we are excluded from the decision
being made and will be completely cut out of any future involvement if
the Academy goes ahead. We feel that the DfE is not acting in “good
faith” in their approach.’
The ‘Save Gladstone
Park School’ campaign is making links with other well-performing
schools that are being forced down the same route, like Roke Primary in
Croydon. LINK
Parents believe
popular schools like these are being deliberately targeted for academy
conversion, as they are likely to improve in the medium-term, whatever
their governance structures, and thus prove the government’s ‘Academies
are better’ ideology correct.
Gladstone Park is a
large, thriving school in one of the country’s most multi-ethnic
boroughs. The main body of pupils at Gladstone Park enters the school
well below the national average for numeracy and literacy, with many
pupils having English as an additional language. The school has shown
that pupils make good progress across the early years (Nursery and
Reception). It has SAT results above the national average, and twice the
national average at level 6, so pupils leave well prepared for
secondary school.
The National Audit Office has already stated that disadvantaged children do less well at Academies which is an issue for most inner-city schools.
Parents and staff at Gladstone Park Primary all want school improvement. But ownership of
this process must rest with the school and its local community. We will
not let it be dictated to us, top-down by faceless bureaucrats.
It is a pity that the Green Party were not invited to the Elders Voice election hustings. We have policies on pensions and carers that are well worth debate.
We want a Citizen's Pension that would be paid unconditionally to all pensioners in the UK at the rate of the official poverty line (currently £170pw for someone living alone and £300 for couples). It would be linked to average earnings. Pensions Credits, which are often not claimed because of the perceived stigma of means testing, would be abolished.
We are committed to a more generous Carer's Allowance, raising it to £80pw from the current £53.10 for a 35 hour week, and increased support to people who want to give care. We will address the issue of child carers under 16 who receive no financial support at all, often working long hours, experiencing emotional stress, and never having the chance to play.
We are very concerned at reductions in the services to people in sheltered housing and would oppose plans to switch to 'floating styles' of support rather than residential. We are committed to the national health service and oppose public service cuts and privatisation.
