what does quality in human services really mean?
TRANSCRIPT
What does ‘quality’ in human services really mean?
Thoughts on ‘empowerment’
Dr Simon Duffy of the Centre for Welfare Reform for Voyage Care
Quality can be a misleading term
Good human services are not really like…
Reliably manufactured widgets
A high quality banking service
A great meal in a restaurant
An honest taxi driver
Excellent surgical care
they are much more like…
A challenging career
Having an adventure
Cooking a meal for yourself
Being in a family
A great night out with your friends
Quality can create a strange sense of distance
between people
Good human services are not services. Staff are not servants and people are not served.
It’s important to remember that human services did not emerge as a rational response to need but as part of the eugenic panic.
Positive change has only happened where people got organised and created new forms of citizen action.
Citizenship is not something we acquire with a passport. It is how we acquire respect and reveal our dignity
There are community support organisations around the world working to advance citizenship.
Total 159
Designing services individually 111
Planning creatively with people 109
Matching staff to people 95
People and families make most decisions 104
Most recruitments involve person and family 61
Can manage their own staff 56
Use and ISF or protected personal budget 61
Can use full range of housing options 70
Individualised policies & procedures 94
People and families check quality 101
Supported by flexible contracting 35
Growing use of ISFs
Recently I spent time back at Inclusion asking people about what made it work for them…
Here are some examples of good support in practice
Measuring what matters
Proxies for citizenship• Relationships
• Control over life
• Distance from poverty
• Housing status
• Contributing roles
• Mental health
• Sources of support
The best single proxy for quality in my experience is how well are families involved
Commissioners in an age of austerity
Some service providers are beginning to change their whole way of working
• Quality in social care is a contested concept and there is an active tension between regulation and human rights
• Innovative organisations are becoming partners and community organisations - not ‘providers’
• In the UK the social care system is in deep crisis and there is no clarity about how this will be resolved