What is Self Directed Support?

Self Directed Support is a new way of providing social care which gives people more choice and control over their own lives.

We want everyone living in Stockport to have choice and flexibility in meeting their eligible social care needs and focus on what helps them to achieve their goals in life. Self Directed Support is designed to give you more choice and control over your life. It's a way of personalising your social care needs that lets you:

• Control the money you get for support
• Choose how to spend the money for your support
• Choose things about your life, for example, who you want to get support from.

Self Directed Support means that following a social care assessment to find out about your eligible needs, you can be given a Personal Budget to spend to meet your care needs and improve your quality of life. A Personal Budget is made up of the amount it would cost to meet your agreed support needs. This money can either be paid as a Direct Payment to you so that you can arrange your own care and support or we can arrange this for you. 

Watch our video about Self Directed Support in Mental Health services

 

Stockport Council also offers Managed Accounts as a way of supporting people to get the full benefits from their Personal Budget. These accounts are ideal if you want to have choice and control over how your agreed needs and outcomes are met but either are unable to, or don't want the responsibility of, directly managing your own budget. Managed Accounts can also be provided by external organisations.

Remember

You can only have a Personal Budget, Direct Payment or Managed Account, if you have been assessed by us as needing support to help you to live independently. An assessment is simply a discussion with you that will help us understand what support you need.

Find out more about an assessment

 

The assessment will determine how much money you can get for your Personal Budget. Once the amount is agreed you can start planning how to spend it. If you want, we can help you to do this by using our experience to agree a plan which meets your support needs and then organise how you will receive the money. It can be paid directly to you, to someone else if you aren't happy dealing with the money yourself, or we can manage it for you.

Finally, you spend the money in ways that you feel best meets your needs. You are in control as long as you spend the money in accordance with your plan. We'll check with you from time to time to make sure everything is going OK and that you are living your life in a way that suits you.

Prepaid Cards

One way that you can have your Personal Budget, or Direct Payment, is by having a Prepaid Card with money paid directly onto it by Stockport Council. A Prepaid Card looks like a Credit or Debit Card, and works in a similar way. You can use it to pay for support, without having to write a cheque or use cash and the money spent is deducted straight from their Personal Budget.

Find out more about Prepaid Cards

 

Who will arrange Self Directed Support for me?

A Social Worker will talk to you during the assessment and that is a good time to say that you are interested in Self Directed Support. If you would like more information they will be able to give it to you at this stage.