WHAT IS FLOATING SUPPORT
FLOATING SUPPORT IS NOT A WARDEN (SCHEME MANAGER)
SERVICE IN ANOTHER NAME IT IS VERY DIFFERENT
Floating support assists people who live in their own homes
or dwellings in the ownership of other organisations, such
as a council, or an RSL
The service it provides is help with issues, such as rent
arrears, benefit claims, neighbour / neighbour friction, to
activites intended to reduce social isolation. It helps
people with medical/mental problems to obtain the services
they need.
Floating staff will visit those, on their visit list, once
a week, or less, or more if needed. The time spent visiting
is variable, from minutes to one or two hours !
Floating staff are not a nursing or NHS service, nor do
they visit other people in Sheltered Housing who are not on
their visit list. They can help those they visit with
certain practical things, as above, and can help a resident
obtain other services.
It is not a permanent service. Once a situation has been
rectified to their satisfaction, they move on to other
situations and that is called 'Floating Away'.
Technically it would be possible to live in a Sheltered
complex which had nobody on the Floating Staff visit list
and, in the circumstances, a entire Sheltered scheme could
be entitled to 'no visits at all',or,
until such time as a resident there was judged to be 'in
need' of them. It is not clear ,at this time, how they are
to find out from a property which they do not visit, if
there are any needs within it !
It can be seen that people who moved into Sheltered Housing
for reasons of previous social isolation would end up even
more isolated than they were if their centre has no Scheme
Manager
What can you expect from this service ?
One model, heard of, concerns different levels of service
and is as follows.
Low: One visit a month
Middle: One visit every two weeks.
High: Once or twice per week (not expected to be maintained
for ever).
Then we have the 'knock and run' service where Floating
Support have to see
100 residents per day !
add to that
Another area where Floating Support have to see 75
residents in five hours. One of
our supporters tagged along for one of these and she
described it afterwards
as 'bedlem'