Keene's vision for a 2013 ADASS

Sandie Keene - the newest director of ADASS - recently addressed ADASS's direction for the months to come. Technology, attitudes and a civic bent all made an appearance in her speech.

Sandie Keene – the up-and-coming president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services recently presented ADASS’s new focuses for social care in 2013 and beyond.

She was clear that the difference in political landscape at the moment had not gone unnoticed, alluding to the fact that no-one has a great deal of funding and that local councils need to be more involved in influencing stakeholders and social care, even if they can’t contribute as much money as they used to.

She also was clear that the big business in adult social services needs to be civic minded. She talked of a bottom-up approach to social provision that starts with individuals and communities rather than one that starts with what might be convenient for business structure and organisation.

She also called for councils to promote ‘enterprising social contract[s]’ with actual service users – a welcome phrase that evokes responsibility, justice, freedom, limits on top down-authority and safety and rights for all.

She also talked about technology in her presentation. If you’ve followed my articles for a while now, you know that I do enjoy talking about how we can use technology in a care provision setting so, for me, this is a very welcome thing to hear those at the very top talking about it.

She pointed out that modern technology allows for some very useful user data to be collected – something that could indeed create a positive feedback loop in the quality of provision. She also talked about apps in the context of information, engagement, self management and the new push for individuals to manage their own care budgets.

Throughout she used an alchemy metaphor, encouraging directors to take their ’base nuggets’ of current care provision and turn them into something of ‘gold-standard quality’ - an apt metaphor for our financially constricted times.

Unfortunately, it does carry a connotation of a futile endeavour but we’ll be kind and lend our support to any calls for improvement and user-centred care provision!