Agenda item

Manny Lewis, Assistant Director of Resident Experience, highlighted some aspects of the presentation from the Access Islington Hub initiative, which were based on the Covid response model “We are Islington”, with a specific focus on early intervention and prevention, collaboration and wrap-around support for residents.  Although the initiative had started off as a simple model of meeting residents’ basic needs, it quickly expanded into a more sophisticated model including vaccine support, support for clinically extremely vulnerable residents and a test and trace service.  All of the learning was remodelled into a face-to-face offer, meeting residents’ needs at the initial point of contact, or assisting them through the journey to achieve their needs.

There were currently two hubs open: the central hub at 222 Upper Street and the south hub at Finsbury Library, both launched in September 2023. A hub was being developed in the north of the Borough, at the Manor Gardens site, which was due to open in June 2025.  The aim of the hubs was to offer comprehensive wraparound support, including money, food, wellbeing, housing, family, community safety and work.  Unsurprisingly, the majority of people attending the hubs needed support with money, food, housing and wellbeing, all of which were linked.  Staff at the hubs had two roles. Firstly, triage advisers met with residents, talking with them to understand and identify what their needs were. This included assistance with digital technology.  Secondly came the connector sessions, which involved more in-depth support to look beyond the preventative needs and attempted to identify the underlying needs. These sessions were not time limited and staff were clear that they had as much time as they needed to get to know the person in front of them, forging a connection to identify their needs and to meet those needs.  Staff had undertaken specialised training for these roles, including trauma-informed practice, level three safeguarding and cultural competency. Training was ongoing as the needs of residents became clearer.

In terms of the priorities for the hubs, they were still in development. Continuous engagement, collaboration and partnership working was under way.  The links with Bright Lives Coaching were very important as they provided short -term support for those needing it, assisting residents to develop their own resilience and skills to develop in the future, with support from the hub.  Talks had taken place with the Single Homeless Project who were now providing sessions at the hubs.  Close links with Citizens Advice Bureau, Islington Mind and Bet No More existed, the latter of whom would be based in the hubs at certain times of the week.  The service was already working well with the Council’s Access services, adult social care, to see if it might be possible to meet needs at the first point of contact, rather than referring residents to other services, which often fed into dependency. More partnerships were in progress.

Another key element was engagement sessions and working groups. Islington’s success was due to the development of good links with the voluntary and community sector, mutual aid groups and tenants associations and the Council was keen to proceed with this work. Discussions were currently being held with Help on Your Doorstep, Age UK and other voluntary and community sector groups about what needed to be done to develop the hub offer.   A suggestion had been made to these organisations that Islington would take their lead, as they were often better placed in the community to understand what residents needed.  An open day had been arranged with voluntary and community sector groups on 15^th March 2024 to pursue further discussions. It was hoped that it might be possible to adapt one of their single assessment processes which seemed to work well.  It would be helpful for all to be working in the same way, to be sharing resources and training.

Islington also had excellent links with other teams, such as mental health crisis teams, when housing and poverty and financial difficulties were often linked and being able to identify and report safeguarding issues which might emerge.  In terms of next steps, Islington was already liaising with health and public health partners on what work might be done with GPs and other health professionals.  The Council was also looking at ways in which they could help health initiatives, for instance by way of encouraging people to take vaccines and boosters.

Questions/responses were made as follows:

It was confirmed that the hubs team could be approached to help residents with assessments for social care.

Staff training was very important. Councillors knew from experience with constituency work that patience and caring were required in dealing with people whose cases could have been ongoing for a very long time.  Given that the hubs were new, people may not be aware of their existence.  Communication  was important in this regard.   The NHS staff were also under considerable pressure and needed support to maintain their wellbeing. The importance of staff training was acknowledged and hub staff had been specifically recruited who would be able to have the quality conversations with people to understand what their underlying needs were.  Staff who had worked on the “We Are Islington” phoneline had been recruited as they were particularly able to develop the necessary relationships and obtain residents’ trust, which often was not easy for people using the service. Managers in the hubs were also being trained to support the staff who often had to deal with very difficult conversations.

The hubs seemed like a very good idea. Much councillor casework concerned people who had already approached the Council and councillors were merely acting as a conduit between the Council and officers. It was hoped that advice from the hubs would break down barriers and enable residents to obtain the help they needed directly.  Were the hubs to be linked to community centres, which were often places where advice was sought anyway?   One of the measures of the success of the hub project could be that casework received by councillors was not about issues which had already been raised at 222 Upper Street.  The Assistant Director concurred with the idea of community centres and other organisations (working alongside the hubs). He was working on a separate project looking at how community centres and the voluntary and community sector groups could better offer advice and support to residents on their first contact and in one place.  He was hopeful that councillors would see a positive impact on their caseloads in the future.  On communications, the new website would shortly be launched and officers were looking at how they might advertise the offer of the hubs more widely.

It was good to see how the good work carried out during the pandemic by the Team had led to the new hubs service.  However, councillors needed to be clear about how the hubs would work in connection with their casework. Should constituents be referred to the hubs? The response was that the hubs were looking for referrals from anywhere, be that councillors, neighbours or Council staff, as hub staff had the ability and experience to stand back and look at the system as a whole.  It was hoped that, where there was a referral from a councillor, issues could be sorted out swiftly.  However, where a matter was complicated, perhaps involving a range of directorates, as was often the case with members’ enquiries, there was difficulty. The question then was who was to take the lead?  It was probably easier if cases were referred directly to the hubs from councillors.

Under the new hub arrangements, it seemed that people could contact the hubs directly, rather than telephoning the access team to adult social care?  The response was that the existing telephone number for access to social services was still operating. The hubs had been introduced to give people an opportunity for face to face contact with someone or who had struggled to gain help elsewhere.

Residents had reported long waits in contacting the access team to adult social care, especially to seek assistance with form filling. How could this be addressed? How would it be possible to monitor the outcomes of contacts with the hubs?  The response given was that the hubs team worked very closely with adult social care and had good links. In fact, some of the hub staff had previously worked in the access care team. Those staff would advise and support hub staff and would even join in a person-to-person conversation with a resident, as necessary.  The case would be held until the outcome had been achieved, all as part of the connector session. Resident satisfaction would be sought by the community connector staff  to ensure that residents were entirely satisfied with all the support they had received and that they had achieved all they needed to.  Information on the number of telephone calls and face-to-face meetings could be supplied if required. However, the most important feedback was from residents, who really valued the service, and staff. Staff often reported that they were enjoying their work and spending time with residents and getting to know them.  There were high numbers of enquiries via the Access Islington service and high volumes of numbers had to be dealt with, meaning that calls had to be dealt with as swiftly as possible. That, in turn, put pressure on staff on the amount of time they could spend with residents. There were no time limits on the new hub service which was important.  However, it was thought that improved technology would help with monitoring outcomes of cases, perhaps a system similar to one operated pre-Covid, where individuals could be tracked across Council services.

It would be helpful for a cribsheet to be produced for councillors on how casework was to be referred to the hubs.

Manny Lewis was thanked for attending and for his presentation.