Support Planning and Brokerage
Here at The Butterfly Project we realise that the process of support planning can seem a little daunting. Our support planning and brokerage expertise come from hands on experience and nationally recognised training. The service that you will receive from The Butterfly Project is unique and tailored to your needs. Below is an explanation of the stages that The Butterfly Project follow in order to deliver a quality and expert service.
Stage One - THE DREAM
This is how your life would ideally look. You will have the opportunity to explore and think of ideas. The Butterfly Project has developed some useful tools to help you with this.
Stage Two - THE MEANS
In this case the “means” (the money) is from Social Services. Your transition social worker will ask you to complete a RAS form, which is short for a Resource Allocation Form. This is a form that will be scored to determine the sum of money that you could potentially be entitled to. This is simply a tick box form, which will ask you about the level of support you need. The funding will then come from a variety of funding streams, which could include:
- Social services funding.
- Primary Care Trust (PCT) – health related funding
- Independent Living Fund (ILF)
- Other sources
You can also count on the people around you and their skills as resources. You may have an Auntie who is great at organising, so it would be great to get her on board to help out with your planning! Think about your family and friends and what they are good at? These people are sometimes referred to as your Circle of Support.
Stage Three - SUPPORT PLANNING
This is when you take your dream and make it into a reality, using your resources. In order to do this you will be required to write a support plan – a document that clearly indicates who you are, what you want, how you will be supported, how you will manage your support, how much it will cost and how it will all be delivered.
If you feel that you would like support with this there are people who are trained to support you with all of this, they are called Support Brokers. You are able to choose your own support broker. There are both independent support brokers and those attached to organisations (such as The Butterfly Project) who you may choose from.
Stage Four - GETTING THE SUPPORT PLAN AGREED
Once the support plan is complete you will need to follow the necessary steps (as advised by the transition social worker) to get the plan agreed. Once the plan is agreed and “signed off”, you will be allocated an Individual Budget which may be paid directly into your own bank account (or can be managed by other people or services.)
Stage Five - IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SUPPORT PLAN (BROKERAGE)
Now that you have the money and the plan, you can set about implementing your support plan. This is agreeing the services that you want, as per your plan, and setting them up.
Once the services are agreed, you can enter into a legally binding agreement - a Contract - with the person(s) or organisation that will be providing your services.
There are many different tasks involved in implementing a support plan and again you may wish to undertake some or many yourself, or with the help of your family. If this is not practical, you can again use the services of a Support Broker to help you with this.
Stage Six - REVIEW
The social worker will review your package after an initial period and then again at set intervals. This is a great opportunity to discuss the outcomes of your package so far and also what you need to do if you would like to make changes to make it work even better for you.
