Claire Holloway:
Here we are for the fourth challenge, and we are in Stockton-on-Tees, in the North East. The first time that we've been up to the North East since 2011. So it's a real privilege to be here.
Mike Greene:
So our challenge is a really important one. It's around how we can look at the broader prevention and early intervention agenda, to look at how we could support our residents to live more independent for longer.
Ann Workman:
The brief really is to look at prevention in its wider sense, particularly across housing, transport, leisure, voluntary sector, adult social care, and public health. We do a great job in terms of prevention already, but we know that we need to go further.
Michael Barrett:
The structure of this challenge is quite interesting because there's lots of team time both on day one and day two. I am observing team catalyst who are going to be captained by Lewis on this occasion, and he’s got some experience of adult social care, so he’s definitely bringing some of that into the challenge.
Lewis:
So, so far, we've spent a lot of time reading through the documentation, everything from their council plan through to their adult social care strategy.
Virginia Ponton:
They're actually able to hone their leadership skills more now and they know each other's strengths and weaknesses. Leanda is doing a great job as captain. She seems very confident; she's managing the team quite methodically.
Leanda:
This is a complex, highly sensitive issue; we're all living longer, we're all getting older, but actually it's that cradle-to-grave ethos that we need to have around social care and how we can live active healthy lives.
Sydney:
I think this challenge has such a wide scope, that we're really just trying to narrow down exactly what this council wants from us. And also, just understand the kind of breadth of the area, what they're doing around adults, around health, around community safety, and leisure.
Joe:
We spoke to Ann, the director of adult social care. She was really helpful in helping us to understand some of the challenges, not just in tackling prevention in the older population of Stockton, but also throughout adult life.
Leanda: From information that we've read in the documents that have been provided, that’s backed up by the people you’ve spoken to. I think that just a little bit of confidence around the ideas that we've got, and the proposals we’re making.
Hannah:
Somehow, we're all pretty aligned…
Joe:
Yeah
Leanda:
I mean this is like, the stars…
Hannah (continued):
…and it’s only five o’clock on day one
Marshall:
I'm here on the challenge filling in for Rose at the moment. Yesterday afternoon, we went on a driving tour around the local area. We first went to Thornaby. Half of the area is quite a deprived area, versus across the road, the kind of relative wealth that they've got there. We went around, saw some local schools, and also went into some more rural villages.
Zoe:
When we came back then, we went to the ARC, and we had two panel meetings. There was like 10 people in each of those, that was quite an intense period. The first one we met with lots of stakeholders from social care, from health, from all the different teams that have got a role in early intervention and prevention at the council.
Hani:
Met people from public health, adult social care, the community sector, transport, and housing, so really looking at prevention in its widest sense. It was really good to get a sense from them in terms of their priorities. We managed to sense check that.
Hannah:
I think we're probably a little bit tired this morning, it was a slightly late night last night trying to work through all of our ideas, but I think we're feeling good. I think we're feeling pretty positive. We've got enough time, hopefully, to put the finishing touches on our proposals and presentation.
Jack:
This morning, we had the opportunity to go to the library, which is next door to the council building, and we met with two finance officers who were really helpful in terms of enabling us to have a bit of a better perspective about the significant cost that goes towards adult social care, and really building some specific proposals and costings towards our ideas.
Felicity:
What came out of the finance meeting was that they are very clear with where their finance streams come from and that's allowed us to possibly redirect those finance streams slightly differently, which will hopefully be better for them in the future.
Sarah Bowman-Abouna:
It's great to see people from a range of local authorities across the country, all with really different skill sets coming together to address this challenge.
Lewis:
Our idea is to fundamentally revolutionise the way that data insights are used within Stockton-on-Tees. This includes drawing upon legacy data systems, but also using new, richer, data from digital technology-enabled care devices. And that's to ensure that we're most optimally placing and targeting services, so they reach people when they will most benefit from them, to achieve better outcomes for residents and better outcomes also for our system partners. So I think what we're proposing really is quite radical for local government.
Gavin Swankie:
Considering the broad nature of prevention and the depth our prevention goes to across our own directorate, across the council and across populations in general, it was no mean feat that they've managed to focus their energies and tackle the specific points on prevention really really well.
Leanda:
Our idea really puts the residents and communities at the heart of any intervention and prevention decisions and strategies. It's about ensuring that people can remain in their homes longer with access to community engagement facilities, and that holistic approach to community resilience, and ensuring that any prevention interventions are data-driven.
Claire Holloway:
Once again, the judges had a really difficult job determining who was going to be the winner, but in the end, we chose team catalyst. We particularly like their strap line, ‘One story, one ride, one home’; it was very realistic, and I have to say that they handled questions brilliantly.
Lewis:
Being able to answer some of those questions and also anticipate some of the further questions that they were going to follow up upon was something I was particularly pleased about.
Leanda:
I think the best moment of the entire challenge is delivering what you've pulled together - that report, that presentation, you know, showing the passion you've got around the idea that you’ve conceived.
Ann Workman:
It’s reinvigorated everywhere, everybody's had a real lift from the people that have been here. The candidates are superb, I can't speak highly enough of them, and it's just been great. Brilliant outcome and a brilliant couple of days.
Lewis:
I’m feeling elated. I'm really very pleased that we've been successful. The radical idea paid off, but we’re really grateful that Stockton-on-Tees Council recognised the benefits that will be delivered through our proposal.