With
the introduction of the Care Standards Act 2000 came preferred
terminology which we felt it easiest to adopt in order to retain clarity
amongst services. We still maintain that people should not be labelled
and should be referred to as people in order to attain social value -
another example of the way in which legislation further devalues people
who are already devalued by society. (See the
SRV Page for more on
that.) Up until now, many services (including ours) used the term IPP or
IP (which stands for Individual [Programme] Plan) when developing plans
of care with people using our services. The new legislation refers to
the term Service Users (for people in receipt of care services) and
instructs us to develop a Service User's Plan instead of an IP.We will encourage each person who receives our service to work alongside their Key Worker, family (if they choose), sponsor's representative (usually) and the Manager of the house to develop a full assessment of need and devise a Service User's Plan which will be reviewed at the request of the Service User or at least every six months by everyone involved in the person's care. Through this process we emphasise real choices and participation in the decision making process as far as possible on the part of the person in care.