Darlington Association on Disability

Darlington Association on Disability is an organisation led by disabled people, which exists to promote independence and choice. DAD supports disabled people and carers through the provision of services, support and information and by tackling issues affecting disabled people both locally and nationally.

Chair’s report to members

The legacy of the London 2012 Paralympic Games was to promote a positive attitude towards all disabled people and create a mindset that would bring true equality for disabled people. Ten years on and this positive mindset has not materialised. There is still too much reliance on minimum standards by providers and employers, as well as looking for loopholes and using the argument of ‘reasonable adjustment’, as if it gives a right to do very little which is not true equality. Whenever there is a national crisis whether it be the pandemic, access to the NHS or the cost of living, disabled people are regularly hit harder than non‑disabled people.

True equality is disabled people being able to access transport, shops, facilities and services etc, as well as having the same education and employment opportunities as non‑disabled people. Darlington Association on Disability (DAD) is committed to promoting disability equality and support disabled people to combat disability inequalities. 

DAD’s staff and volunteers have worked extremely hard through exceptionally difficult times to ensure DAD continues to take a leading role in changing negative attitudes that prevent disabled people participating fully as equal citizens. I often read comments from service users expressing their gratitude, when the words you’re a lifesaver are used in the comments it sums up how much the support meant to that person. I am immensely grateful and offer my heartfelt thanks to all the staff and volunteers for their hard work and commitment.

I cannot overstate how appreciative I am to Chief Executive Lauren Robinson, Deputy Chief Executive Tracy Roberts along with senior managers Rosemary Berks, Stacey Allen and David Thomas who have worked tremendously hard to ensure DAD fulfils its commitments to disabled people and delivers services that are so badly needed. I acknowledge the role played by them and I thank them for all their hard work, commitment and professionalism. 

The constant struggle to secure funding is ever present and I express my extreme gratitude to all our financial supporters, especially in these times of uncertainty, and offer them my sincere thanks.

As always my warmest thanks go to my fellow trustees for their time and hard work that often goes unseen. I cannot stress too strongly the value of having dedicated and knowledgeable trustees and I thank each and every one of them for their commitment and loyalty to DAD. 

Gordon Pybus

Chairperson

 

ACHIEVEMENTS AND PERFORMANCE

Key Achievement's 2021‑2022

As with many frontline voluntary organisations the pandemic continued to have a major impact on our work. As a local organisation we continued to respond on several fronts.  Disabled people continued to be massively impacted on all fronts and demand for support continued to increase and affect the capacity of the organisation.

Research now provides hard evidence that disabled people were some of those most affected, and continue to be, by the effects of Covid 19. Throughout the year the organisation dealt with continuing impact of Covid whilst trying to get back pre pandemic service levels particularly for DASH playschemes and The Independent Living Hub. DAD is rightly proud that we were one of the first organisations locally to re open services safely and conduct face to face visits for Advocacy support. Demand for Advocacy in particular, due to the rising cases of mental health issues primarily, has been unprecedented.

Existing DAD services responded in a range of ways;

Access Interest Group – continued to work with the Local Authority and businesses across Darlington as the Town reduced and removed various restrictions on access such as social distancing measures for access to shops, bus stops, road changes etc.

Active involvement in local developments, such as the refurbishment of the main Railway Station, commenting and advising on all planning applications and audits have all continued.

Involvement with Durham & Darlington Police and the Police and Crime and Victims Commissioners office (PCVC) has continued to raise the issues around recognition of Hate Crime and support for victims.  This has led to continued investment in the provision of a Hate Crime Advocacy Service by the PCVC to support people, across all the equality strands, facing Hate Crime.

Regular meetings have been held with the local Member of Parliament to update on disability issues leading to DAD being mentioned in House of Commons debates on several occasions to influence national issues. Representations have also been made via the Regional Disability Network facilitated by the Cabinet Office.

 

Advocacy

Demand for all areas of Advocacy has increased throughout the pandemic, particularly as the impact on people’s mental health is realised. The service dealt with 1773 requests for support, an increase of 23% on the previous year. During the early months of the pandemic DAD joined the national campaign against the blanket issue of Do Not Resuscitate notices that were being issued by the NHS. The campaign led to the withdrawal of the guidance however the reality is that many people lost their lives who may have otherwise survived, particularly people with a learning impairment. The work to mitigate the impact of this continues through checking records and raising the issues with professionals. 

Advocates were amongst the first people to be allowed into Care Homes when the restrictions were changed and continued throughout to ensure that people had their rights upheld by providing telephone and online support.

DAD has developed its work across all strands in Tees Valley including; general statutory Advocacy, Independent Mental Capacity Advocacy (IMCA), Independent Mental Health Advocacy (IMHA), Relevant Persons Representatives (RPR) and Care Act advocacy for local Councils and Clinical Commissioning Groups. 

All advocates hold, or are working towards, the National Advocacy Qualification to ensure that the team have the up‑to‑date knowledge and skills necessary to support people to access the services they need and to ensure that their rights are upheld.

Carers Support

Breaks for Carers was one of the services that had to be temporarily closed due to the pandemic however, recognising the huge impact this would have on families, we were able to offer everyone support through the Keeping People Connected Project. The Hub and DASH were amongst the first services in Darlington to re‑open to provide face to face services. Strict Covid risk assessments were put in place, to enable people to have much needed support and for carers to receive a break mainly funded by the Better Care Fund. 

Children and Young Peoples Service (ChYPS)

Were able to deliver DASH play schemes from summer 2021 to small groups with very stringent Covid measures in place. With careful management the service was delivered through every school holiday on a limited basis.

Support from funders including UK Youth and the Local Authority enabled the service to cover the extra costs of Covid measures.

Funding from LNER enabled Covid secure outings, when safe to do so, to ensure disabled children had opportunities to re‑engage with activities such as farm trips, travel training and trampolining.

The Independent Living Hub

The service continued to offer a safe service for small groups. Many people who had previously attended regularly were facing isolation and raised anxiety and mental health issues and were in need of face to face support to prevent a crisis. The DAD accessible vehicle was able to provide transport in a Covid secure way and enable people to access the service. The Hub was able to continue to support disabled people to develop new skills, have access to education, leisure and social activities

Direct Payments Support Service

Was at the forefront of supporting disabled people at the start of the first lockdown assisting employers to source essential Personal Protective Equipment, understand the options for Personal Assistants including furlough, sickness, dealing with shielding and other changes to Government schemes. Delivering payroll support throughout the pandemic has been a critical service to ensure employers could continue to access support. The service was also instrumental in the vaccine roll out to Personal Assistants as part of the social care workforce.

The service continued to cover Darlington, Redcar and Cleveland and included support for people to be employers (recruitment, insurance, payroll and management of finance).  DAD was unfortunately not in a position to submit a bid to continue supporting people in Middlesbrough after June 2021. Despite the pandemic we were able to develop a new online training offer for Employers with support from Skills for Care which also included Infection Control training for Employers and Personal Assistants.

Information Provision

Information provision has been critical throughout the pandemic to ensure disabled people and carers could access the right support, have the Government Guidance explained and provide essential support to keep people safe. DAD still aims to be the first point of contact for disabled people and carers despite no specific funding available for the service we continue to deal with any request for information from disabled people and carers. The enquiries as a result of the pandemic increased demand by 65% and have continued to remain at higher levels across all areas including housing, benefits, transport, education and equipment.

Self Advocacy

Peoples Parliament, as the voice of people with a learning impairment in Darlington, were able to again meet face to face and successfully campaigned for the re‑establishment of the Learning Impairment Network in Darlington to ensure that issues affecting people can be addressed. DAD will be supporting the group with the facilitation of the meetings.  

Impact and outcomes

The pandemic brought into sharp focus the value of a local user led organisation. DAD was able to quickly mobilise support to those who were most in need, we offered a check in service to everyone on our database through the new Keeping People Connected service to ensure that everyone had support, those who were isolated were identified and given targeted support and social media was used to reach out to any disabled person locally who needed support. As Keeping People Connected came to an end in March 2022 transition support had been developed for those who needed it through the 3 R’s programme for people who continued to be at risk or felt unsafe and lacking in confidence due to increased anxiety.

Most significantly demand for our services, in line with the picture across the voluntary and community sector, has continued to increase. Compared to pre pandemic levels referrals have increased by 30% equivalent to almost 500 additional people who have received support. Hours of support delivered through the Advocacy service have increased by 3000 hours and across the organisation there has been an average increase of 70 hours per week. This is all made possible by the brilliant staff and volunteer team that are committed to supporting people to have independence, choice and control.

Over the 12 months we have; 

• Continued to support people across a wide geographical area including Tees Valley, Co Durham, North Yorkshire and the wider North east region.
• Kept people safe through continued testing for Covid, promotion and uptake of vaccination and booster programmes, flexible support and accessible information providing Covid related support in addition to our usual services.
• Delivered playschemes during school holidays and restarted Monday evening after school sessions, thanks to funding from Children in Need, ensuring children and young people impacted by the isolation of missing school and social activities were able to have fun and provide parents with a much needed break.
• Provided accessible transport to enable people to attend the Independent Living Hub safely with stringent Covid measures in place ensuring people felt safe to travel.
• Worked with numerous organisations locally and regionally to ensure that people were supported throughout the pandemic and ongoing lockdowns.

Over 60% of people who received information felt this had enabled them to be more independent and have more choice and control over their lives.

We continued to support people of all ages from 4 to 100, regardless of impairment. A high percentage of those receiving advocacy support are older people who require support in care homes. Significant numbers of people experiencing mental ill health are also supported via the Advocacy project. A significant number of carers are supported through the Short Breaks contract, the Direct Payment Support Service. The ChYPS service had 135 children and young people registered to receive support through after school and holiday schemes.

High standards of governance were maintained and improved with the achievement of the CHAS enhanced quality mark and the maintenance of the Investors in People award.

 

FINANCIAL REVIEW

Review of financial activities and affairs

The financial affairs of the Association were managed by a Trustee sub‑committee which met throughout the year and reported to the Trustees.

The last financial year could have been the ‘perfect storm’ of a huge rise in demand with insufficient resources or reserves. However, many funders rose to the challenge of supporting the sector with the speed that was needed. We are immensely thankful to County Durham Community Foundation, Inclusion North (with funding from the Integrated Care System) and TEWV for enabling us to continue to support people through Keeping People Connected and the 3R’s project to ensure people could regain their confidence and feel safe in going back out into the community.

The support for core funding during the pandemic fortunately put the organisation on a secure footing to withstand the ongoing challenges and remain resilient as the Cost of Living Crisis begins to impact on all organisations. The support received form the Local Authority, through the Infection Control Fund, has ensured that the organisation could cope with the additional ongoing costs of dealing with Covid such as staff capacity, testing, provision of PPE, increasing costs of insurance, fuel, utilities etc to continue to deliver essential support to disabled people and carers at a critical time. 

The incoming resources for the 12 month period amounted to £1,107,648 of which £94,723 was for restricted projects and £1,012,925 was attributable to general funds before expenditure.

Reserves policy

The Trustees established a policy whereby the unrestricted funds not committed or invested in tangible fixed assets ('the free reserves') held by the charity should be between 3 and 6 months of the resources expended in general funds. This is the level assessed by Trustees that would enable the organisation to manage risks associated with a sudden loss of funding. Trustees agreed that a Designated Fund will be established to support un‑met need and essential development. The level of free reserves at the year end is £402,231.

Contracts were in place with Darlington, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland Councils and the Clinical Commissioning Group. Grants were received from Police Crime and Victims Commissioner, Skills for Care, Youth Investment Fund, Children in Need, Durham Community Foundation, Sports England, the Disabled People’s Organisation National Emergency Fund, DBC Infection Control Fund, LNER, TEWV, Inclusion North and Learning Disability England. 

Future plans

We are fully committed to continuing our strategy of operating as a Centre for Independent Living across Tees Valley. Advocacy provision is well established across the whole of Tees Valley and we will continue to support people across Darlington, Redcar and Cleveland to access Direct Payments with the wide range of support including payroll and Managed Accounts. Work to support people with Personal Health Budgets who wish to be Employers is also continuing. The renewal of contracts with Darlington Borough Council and Redcar and Cleveland Council to deliver the Direct Payments Support Service, both confirmed by June 2022, will enable us to build on current provision in both of those areas. 

The Advocacy service continues to grow and we are working hard to ensure that we provide a high quality service across the Tees Valley. The staff team has been expanded to ensure we have capacity and we are working alongside partners across the Region to ensure that people have the support they need and demonstrate the difference that good advocacy support can make to someone’s life. We are involved in some innovative work with regional partners in the Good Life Collaborative. Funding from Learning Disability England is enabling partners to work with individuals to challenge the barriers they face having to live in long term hospitals and institutions as a result of no other options being available to them. 

In Darlington we have worked with the Council to re-establish the Learning Impairment Network, facilitating the network to ensure local people have a voice and tackle the issues important to them.

A jointly funded post with the Council via The Towns Fund is also being developed to ensure that the Town continues to have a reputation for excellent accessibility has also been agreed to support the work of The Access Interest Group.

To cope with increasing demand and pressures the Trustees have confirmed a re structure of Management functions to provide more capacity, reducing the hours of the Chief Executive and increasing the Senior Management team to include the Deputy Chief Executive and three Senior Managers along with increased HR support within our Business Support Officers role. These changes will be implemented in the coming months.

The challenges ahead in relation to the increasing costs of living will impact on the organisation and most importantly on those we support, disproportionately.

This is in addition to the ongoing impact still being experienced by many from the pandemic. We will be working closely with partners wherever possible to mitigate the negative impacts and support disabled people and carers wherever possible.

DAD wish to thank all funders and supporters of the organisation.  In particular our amazing staff team and the many people who give hours of their time, expertise, skills and knowledge to ensure that DAD continues to be a successful organisation. Volunteers work at all levels of the organisation. As a User Led Organisation, disabled people and carers volunteer as Trustees and others work across all projects which DAD operates. Volunteers are the backbone of the organisation and our thanks and appreciation go to all of them.

DAD will continue to ensure that the organisation has a strong presence going forward, promoting the organisation as a Centre for Independent Living available to support all disabled people and carers.

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