Birmingham City has a fight on its hands!!

[Jeanette]

My city has stated it is going to close my daughter's day centre. I hav'n't come across another like it and it works extremely well.The reason of the closure is purely money saving! Their fault because they didn't respond to requests of simple repair and now it needs more money spent to rectify their mismanagement. They are saying other places will be offered but as you are all aware, places are CLOSING,plus this apparently being the only one of its type,so a similar one just isnt there!! They seem determined to push direct payment ,which will of course put a huge amount of extra work on an already over worked carer.(Unpaid of course) I find this a travesty of justice and wonder if any of you know an area in the new Carers act that might help our fight to keep the centre open or another avenue we can go down ? We have a petition and also a website.Google will take you to our website which also has the petition.It is Save the Fairways day centre from closure.Add Birmingham and up it comes.(Am not PC competent aged and disabled myself even though a carer for 50 years) so am sorry there isn't a direct link. I know you are a very supportive and competent website for Carers so ask for help!! Many thanks for just reading this!!

[Chris From The Gulag]

Cutbacks in respite care allied with the introduction of charges , closely followed by the closure of day centres across the country through " Lack of use " has been recorded numerous times on carer forums since 2004 ... a " Blog " of sorts ran on the old PRT site ( Now Carers Trust ) from late 2004 until the summer of 2005 ... from memory , 63 / 64 reported cases ... and , short of the well recorded protest in Lambeth at that time , together with several disabled carees taking on the Lincolnshire Council , NOTHING was ever done to stop the closures ... by ANY supporting organisation or political party.

Nothing in the CarerWatch archives on " Lambeth " beyong mention of contact being lost with the orginal site which sprung up shortly after the infamous hikes in care costs were announced by Lambeth Council back in 2005.

Nothing on a Google search beyond several other Lambeth protests since ... at least those on one manor are expressing their views ???

" We are liaising with the Local Authority " was the best anyone could get out of them .... liasise they may have done but ... no day care centre was ever spared leaving hundreds of thousands of carees and carers abandoned to their own fate.

At one stage , late 2005 , two national newspapers told me not to send any more articles on the closures as they had reached satuation point , and said articles were no longer " News worthy " .... didn't sell newspapers , the public had had enough of them !

Fast forward to 2017.

Closures are still happening as the first posting clearly relates.

What remedies are available ?

The Care Act has been muted ... the " Should / Could / Would " Act ... possibily something within the Childrens Act , 1989 ?

Question is ... who out there is looking at the legal side in anticipation of mounting a challenge ?

If past history is anything to go by , it will take individuals acting together to explore this avenue.

[Jeanette]

thank you for answering Chris.I think Carers have enough on their shoulders as well as having to fight this appalling injustice.We do need help and support from caring professional people who know how to fight the system. Are you saying get in a lawyer? We have no funding behind us! Am just pleased I have opened more Carers/other peoples eyes and hope they sign our petition. Have just read that our MP has a stall in my area today and is also getting people to sign our petition. Praise him at the moment and hope he continues to offer his services.I have not put his name incase it infringes the rules.(but the stall is in Northfield,Birmingham today. )

[Chris From The Gulag]

I was once shot down in flames for introducing a thread on CarerWatch in 2008 .... RESISTANCE IS FUTILE ... by a very respected former poster here on this forum who had actually prevented the disbandment of his local carer centre ... in one case , I standed to be corrected.

Legal avenue ?

What are the options available .... from another thread ... the dusting off of old CND banners , together with their owners , a token demo on a wet day with hardly any show of solidarity from " Joe Public " unless said issue affects him / her / undecided which ?

Petitions seem to be the " In " remedy in today's Internet world .... possibly as many now out there as there are people ???

Politicians ? Only too willing to endorse anything which could upset the other party or , enhance his / her own position in their party ... self interest as opposed to REAL concern ?

Sit ins ? Good for news , hard on one's " Brains " ( Unless one brings their own cushion ? ) , and normally ended with the arrival of gorillas posing as bouncers ?

No , only the words from a judge can physically halt any closure ... albeit only temporary.

Now , how exactly are a group of " Impoverished " individuals going to achieve that goal WITHOUT the support of someone further up the chain , and with the financial means to be able to support the venture to it's conclusion ?

Crowd funding ... another remedy .... and , like , petitions , how many " Violin players with caps / hats / bonnets / mangy mongel by their feet " are there around ?

Latest twist seen just around the corner from my eerie ... half starved looking children in buggies. UC rolls out here on the 1st. December.

Sorry if the above sounds bleak but ... I find being blunt and realistic is more of assistance to fellow carers than any supporting organisation can ever expect to achieve.

In CarerLand , the only person who can here you scream is ... a fellow carer.

Carers .... a diverse army if ever there was one ... united through caring under terms and conditions imposed that no other group would endure.

At this point , our Lord Kitch ... take a bow !

The view from the grass roots ....

[Pet66]

I'm very sad to hear that Jeanette. As far as I know, the Fairway day centre has been open for a long time.
If I find details of a petition against closure I will definitely sign.
Take care

[Jeanette]

Thanks Pet.Really appreciated.It is easy to find on google.'Save The Fairway day centre from closure,and add Birmingham. Interesting what you said Chris,I can remember from my younger days quite a lot of what you wrote,but still fought them!!

[Chris From The Gulag]

Good to hear that the " Spirit of Pre 2009 " still lives ... in fellow carers' memories if not in the nightmares of our supporting organisations ?

[Melly1]

Hi Jeanette,
What a massive worry for you and the other Carers and potential upset for your carees. As the carer of a young adult with special needs, I totally understand what this could potentially mean. The authorities are only ever looking at short term ways of saving money, they don't consider how removing support from Carers will cost them more in the long term.

The petition link is here https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Bi ... m_Closure/


Direct payments aren't worth diddly squat as its really hard to find anyone reliable to employ at such a low rate and at times a caree needs 2:1 support eg when needing toileting/ having a meltdown etc and the DP calculation doesn't allow for that.

Keep us posted with the campaign.

Melly1

[Pet66]

Signed
Pet66

[Jeanette]

Thanks for putting up the link to the petition Melly.Really appreciated.Thanks for signing Pet.The signatures are worth their weight in gold to me,just showing how people really care!