Direct Payments – arranging your own care and services

If you have had an assessment that shows you are eligible for social care services, you may prefer to organise your services yourself rather than have the Council do this for you. This is called ‘Direct Payments’.

Direct Payments allow more choice and control over the services you receive and gives you the opportunity to live as independently as possible.

With Direct Payments:

• You choose who provides your care and
• You control when you receive your care

We provide a payment directly to you, providing you are eligible to receive services, so that you can arrange and buy your own support.

If you are aged 18 or over; a carer; have parental responsibility for a disabled child or you are a disabled young person aged 16 or over and wish to find out more about the Direct Payments Scheme, please read our factsheet a guide to receiving Direct Payments. You may also wish to view The Direct Payments Scheme in Wales film below.

If you decide the Scheme would be ideal for you, please contact your Social Worker/Care Manager or the Independent Living Team on 01495 766220 / 01633 624176 or email independentlivingteam@torfaen.gov.uk.

Employer toolkit

The Care Council have launched a new online toolkit for direct payment employers and personal assistants. 

The employer toolkit to support the learning of personal assistants provides guidance, practice examples and practical tools to help employers support their personal assistants to gain the skills they need to be confident and competent in their roles. It is hoped that this toolkit will be a valuable resource, providing direct payment recipients with useful information, ideas and examples of good practice. It can help with the role as an employer from considering the skills, knowledge and attitudes you may be looking for when employing personal assistants to different ways of approaching their learning and development.

The toolkit was developed and informed by a group that included organisations which support employers and personal assistants, local authorities and direct payment employers.  Information about the toolkit will be shared with all organisations which support direct payment employers in Wales, local authorities and third sector organisations.

The Employer toolkit to support the learning of Personal Assistants can be accessed here.

Basic Awareness Learning Resource for Personal Assistants employed via Direct Payments

Torfaen Social Care and Housing officers and Services for Independent Living (SiL – Direct Payment Support Service) collaborated with Project Managers from Unison, and leading author Dr Neil Thompson, to create an accessible, online learning resource to support the induction and continued professional development of Personal Assistants (PAs).

This innovative bilingual project responds to the general recognition that there is very little bespoke accessible training available for PAs and supports the belief that PAs training needs should be recognised in the same way that training is available to Care Agency staff.

The online programme which is accessible via tablet, smartphone or PC, aims to ensure that PAs receive awareness training within the first twelve weeks of employment and will serve as a refresher tool for existing PAs.

The bi-lingual programme consists of 5 modules focusing on key areas:

• The role of a PA
• Professional Standards and conduct
• Safeguarding
• Dementia
• Mental Capacity
• Manual Handling
• Food Hygiene

You can access the Personal Assistants Online Guidebook here.