Welcome to the Adult Social Care page on Let’s Talk County Durham

Adult social care supports people who need extra help to live safely and independently. This support can include:

• Help at home
• Support in the community
• Equipment to make everyday tasks easier
• Adaptations to your home
• Residential care
• Support for unpaid carers

We are committed to improving how we work with communities and people who draw on our services. We want to make sure people have a stronger voice in decisions that affect them, including how services, policies and initiatives are designed.

We believe the best way to create long-lasting, effective change is by working together. Lived experience and professional expertise are both important in designing and delivering services. Everyone brings valuable skills, experiences and knowledge, and these differences help us develop better solutions. Working in this way is called co-production, but there are lots of other ways that you can influence decisions.

At the bottom of this page, you will see a range of projects you can get involved in.

You can also sign up to be a member of our Involvement Forum, and join regular conversations with the Director of Adult and Health Services.

Our Adult Social Care Involvement Forum

The Involvement Forum is a place for:

• People who use adult social care
• Family members, unpaid carers, and supporters
• People who help connect communities with social care services

Becoming a member gives you the chance to:

• connect with others,
• share your views regularly
• help shape plans and ideas through co-production projects
• give feedback on changes before decisions are made
• Find out what has happened when people have helped shape our services.

Being a member of the forum does not mean you have to do everything. You can take part in the ways that feel right for you, at a pace that works for you.

We use the term Involvement to describe the different ways that people who are affected by our decisions can influence them. We want to co-produce wherever we can, but other forms of involvement can be just as important.

What does Involvement mean?

Inform: We will keep you informed with information that is clear and easy to understand.

Educate: We will help you to understand more complex issues and check that you understand how decisions will affect you.

Consult: We will ask for your opinion and feedback using different types of involvement when we have to carry out a formal consultation.

Engage: We will work with you to find out what matters most to you, and use this information to shape our decisions. We will explain how your feedback has changed things.

Co-design: We will work with you to develop solutions and preferred options, but the final decision will stay with us.

Co-produce: We will work with you to identify problems, develop solutions and implement what we decide together, as equals.

Click on the projects below to find out more about things you could get involved in.