Agenda item

Olive Robinson provided an update about the work of “ACES”.

Olive said she used to work for the county council until a couple of years ago. Her remit then was black elders in the county.

ACES has changed its name to reflect large range of ethnic groups e.g. Irish, using the service, not just Afro-Caribbean people.

ACES provides a wide range of day care services, advocacy, welfare rights, telephone befriending service, health programmes, and a day care centre to support the varied needs of older people. It has become a first port of call for many older Afro-Caribbean community. It helps with form-filling. If they can’t help directly, they signpost. ACES is based at Park Avenue North. It was first established in 1992 when Olive joined the county council.

Service users are referred from the county council, hospitals and other services as well as individuals and faith groups.

ACES help people to live at home rather than have to go into residential care, particularly including established users who as they have become older have developed dementia. Were ACES not there, supporting these people would be a significant cost to local authorities.

Funding is a challenge and so ACES hold a lot of fundraising activities. There is a hope the people from the black community themselves will help support ACES due to the lack of any other specific services for older black people and the reluctance of black older people to go into residential care. Olive said that there are very few black older people in residential care in the county.

The annual dinner and dance attracts people from across the country, not just locally. It is one of the most significant events in the black community social calendar locally.

The staffing and trustees include lawyer and social workers.

The future of ACES is uncertain. Each year ACES submits a 3 year business plan to the county council. Each year the county council says it can’t help ACES. But so far at the last minute the county council has been able to find a small pot of money which enables ACES to continue.

The county council and ACES have both asked users what they would do if ACES closed – so the county council is aware as well as ACES. But it has not made a difference as if the county council do not have the funding to provide day care services, they don’t have the money.

ACES has submitted information showing cost-benefit analysis to help the county council understand how much money ACES believes it is saving the county council.

Where clients are in receipt of direct payments, this can be taken into account by the county council – but they will only fund people for a certain number of days not every day of the week. Where people don’t qualify for direct payments ACES makes a small charge for certain things. It is difficult to make ends meet from money service users receive for direct payments.

More information is on their website www.acescentre.co.uk and on their Facebook profile “ACES” or by telephone 01604 715044.