Anna Severwright and Kari Gerstheimer discuss the importance of 'people power' in social care and how lived experiences can and should shape decision-making.

They share insights on co-production and the need for genuine involvement of individuals in service design, highlighting positive examples from councils like Hammersmith and Fulham. Anna reflects on the challenges faced in advocating for change and emphasises the value of peer support and preparation in navigating social care assessments.

Top Tips: Local Authority Assessments

Vicky Hughes is a legal case worker at Access Social Care with a background in social work, having worked on a community learning disability team.

She brings her knowledge and experience working in this area to offer some great tips on how to prepare for assessments to present a strong case for consideration.

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In the first part of the episode, Anna and Kari discuss the findings from the latest edition of the ASC State of the Nation report which looks into adult social care advice seeking.

Anna and Kari are joined by the authors of the report, Amit Kohli, Head of Data at Access Social Care and Hannah Hewish, Legal Manager and Data Lead at Access Social Care. The report is based on data gathered from enquiries into a range of partners; Carers UK, Ealing Independence Age, RNIB, SCOPE, Age UK Mencap, Citizens Advice as well as Access Social Care's online helpline tool AccessAva as well as their case work.

It shows a staggering 222% increase in the number of people calling national help lines to seek social care information and an increase of 206% increase In the number of people requiring specialist social care Legal advice.

The second part of this episode is Care Act Legal Tips and this episodes shines a light on Advocacy and the care act. What it is, Who is entitled to it and tips to help people get an advocate when they need one.

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Featuring: Dr Anna Severwright OBE and Kari Gerstheimer, CEO Access Social Care

In this episode Access Social Care Founder and CEO Kari Gerstheimer is joined by her new co-host Dr Anna Severwright from #SocialCareFuture. They begin by exploring how they both came to be so passionate about social care rights and talk about the organisations they convened. Kari also updates Anna on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests that ASC have made over the last 2 years to better understand how the government decides how much budget to allocate to adult social care funding. The requests have been denied by 2 government departments in spite of the Information Commissioner supporting their disclosure in the public interest. Kari outlines why this case is so important and outlines ASC's plan to begin a.sector wide campaign for greater transparency.

Click here to visit Access Social Care website

Click here ot find out more about #SocialCareFuture

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