Direct Payments For People With A Learning Disability
This information tells you the most important things about Direct Payments. We hope this information will help you work out if Direct Payments might be right for you.
You might prefer to click here and read this information on the Learning Disability North East website.
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What are Direct Payments?
Direct Payments is money your council’s Social Services department can give you. You use it to buy the support you need instead of the council arranging your support for you. Direct Payments are a good way of you being the boss of your own life.What does ‘support’ mean?
Support can mean different things. Here are some of the types of support you might know about.- Support from a place or team of people like a day centre, community team or staff where you live
- Support with personal things like having a bath, washing or getting dressed
- Support to live in your own house like help with money, cooking or cleaning the house
- Support to get out and about like driving you to see friends, help to join in things with other people, or someone to go on holiday with you
What type of support do you need? Why not get some paper and make a list?
You would spend your Direct Payments money on getting support that you choose. You must spend it on things that Social Services agree you need.
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Who can have Direct Payments?
Most people who use Social Services from the council could get Direct Payments.
Social Services must tell you if you can get Direct Payments but they can’t make you have Direct Payments if you don’t want them. This is a rule. Direct Payments are a good way of you being the boss of your own life. You are in charge. You choose what services you use, when you use them and who you get them from. Being a boss means being in charge of people. It is important that you treat people fairly.
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What can I use Direct Payments money for?
People use Direct Payments in lots of ways. You could use Direct Payments to:- Pay someone to support you in a job
- Pay someone to support you at college
- Get support with personal care – things like having a bath, washing or getting dressed
- Get support with cooking or cleaning your house
- Get support to do sport or leisure activities
- Get support for a short break
You can get support during the day instead of going to a day centre. You can get support to live in your own home instead of living in a care home. If you still want to use some Social Services the council might be able to sort out a mix of Direct Payments and Social Services. You can get your own support worker, sometimes called a Personal Assistant, instead of using services.
Read some real-life stories about how people use Direct Payments.
Who will help me with my Direct Payments money?
Durham County Council has set up a Direct Payments support team to help people use Direct Payments. They can help you understand and run your Direct Payments. They sort out some of the hard things with you.
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Can I find out some more information about Direct Payments?
This is only a little bit of information about Direct Payments.You might want to learn more before you decide if you want to use them. Here are some ways to do that.
1. Ask us for a copy of the Direct Payments pack
This pack from the Department of Health includes a book and a Direct Payments CD-Rom. This is a CD to use with a computer. It won’t play on a CD player. The CD-Rom is a fun way to find out more about Direct Payments. You could get someone to help you with this if you want. It also has a book in it called 'An Easy Guide to Direct Payments'. A lot of information on this page is from that book.
Phone the council’s marketing team on tel: 0191 383 5150, email: directpayments@durham.gov.uk or complete this feedback form to get a copy of the pack.
You can also read the book by clicking here.
2. Talk to the council
If you already use Social Services, you should speak to the person you usually speak to about these services. This will probably be your Social Worker or Care Manager.
If you don’t have a Social Worker, you (or a friend or family member) can phone the council’s Social Care Direct team on tel: 0845 8505010, email: scd@durham.gov.uk or fill in this Social Care Direct online enquiry form.
3. Visit our other Direct Payments internet pages
Have a look at our other information about Direct Payments. Some of it is very long though, so you might want to ask someone to read it for you and tell you the most important bits.
That’s the end of the information. We hope it helped you find out about Direct Payments!
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Links to External Organisations and Information You may Find Useful
- National Centre for Independent Living NCIL can tell you about Direct Payments support in the area where you live.
- Mencap's Learning Disability Helpline - This is a helpline run by Mencap. You can speak to an advisor in the day, or leave a message day or night and someone will call you back. Or you can send them an email.
Tel: 0808 8081111
Minicom: 0808 8088181
Email: help@mencap.org.uk
Website: www.mencap.org.uk
Links To Other Durham County Council Web Pages You May Find Useful
- Learning Disability North East
- Learning Disabilities web page
- About the Learning Disabilities Team - who we are and what we do
Information taken from 'An easy guide to Direct Payments' found in the Direct Payments information from the Department of Health. © Crown Copyright. Reproduced under the terms of the Click-Use Licence. For permission to reproduce this information visit the Office of Public Sector Information website.
