The new service called ‘Together For Sutton’ provides free, impartial, professional and confidential information, advice, support and advocacy to all residents in the London Borough of Sutton across a range of health and social care resources and services. This could include, for example, advice and support for unpaid carers, advice on coping with debt or support for people at risk of losing their independence.
The service will be open Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm (excluding bank holidays) and will provide community members with a single point of access through the dedicated phone number or online referral form. This will ensure that residents will need to tell their story and give their information only once. Residents will then be contacted by the relevant service who will be able to provide the information and support required.
The service is made up of seven well-established and highly experienced voluntary organisations including; Advocacy for All, Age UK Sutton, Citizens Advice Sutton, Community Action Sutton, Healthwatch Sutton, Sutton Carers Centre and Volunteer Centre Sutton.
Simon Breeze, Chief Executive Officer, Community Action Sutton said: “Together for Sutton brings together a partnership of community focused and person-centred organisations which are intent on making a difference to people’s lives. Given the current cost of living crisis it is more important than ever to provide services that support residents and that are accessible in the way that best suits their needs and this is where the charity and community sector excels.”
Councillor Marian James, Chair of People Committee said: “I am delighted to see the Together for Sutton site going live. It will be an important tool for our partners to help provide vital information, advice, advocacy and support services for our residents, from debt advice, to support around caring for family members, to finding out how to access a range of services to support you in your daily life, with the focus on residents only having to tell their story once.”
Notes to editors
‘Together For Sutton’ has been created to ensure that individuals, families and communities are able to access a diverse range of information, advice, guidance and support to make informed choices and sustain change.
The service is aimed at supporting a range of needs for residents of Sutton around the key areas that are listed below:
- Formal and informal information networks to ensure people are being signposted to the correct source of information and advice at the right time and help facilitate the exchange of consistent, accurate and relevant information.
- Provision of universal information giving residents the information they need on a range of topics or issues. This will provide residents with information for them to know what their options are and how to do more about their situation.
- Provision of advice services giving individuals more specialised support with advice and advice casework. This includes the diagnosis of the enquiry, giving information, explaining options, identifying further actions the client can take and providing some assistance.
- Professional advocacy support to help people say what they want, secure their rights, represent their interests and views and obtain the services they need.
Support services will focus on areas where there is greatest need and provide support to enable residents to make and sustain choices and change, to include one to one support for individuals, support to build local networks, peer or group support, mentoring and breaks/activities/time out.
Healthwatch Sutton will also promote and support the involvement of local people in the provision and scrutiny of local care services, enable local people to monitor the standard of provision of local care services and how local care services could be improve and obtain the views of local people regarding their needs for, and experiences of local care services and make these views known.
Community Action Sutton supports voluntary and community group in Sutton, they are the lead organisation for this contract and will manage the contracts with the six partner organisations.
More information on the organisations involved
Advocacy for All
Web: www.advocacyforall.org.uk/where-we-work/sutton/, Twitter: @biggervoice, Facebook: @advocacy4all and YouTube: @AdvocacyforAll.
Age UK Sutton
Web: www.ageuk.org.uk/sutton/, Twitter: @AgeUKSutton, Facebook: @AgeUKSutton and YouTube: @AgeUKSutton.
Citizens Advice Sutton
Web: www.citizensadvicesutton.org.uk/, Twitter: @AdviceSutton and Facebook: @cabsutton
Community Action Sutton
Web: www.communityactionsutton.org.uk/, Twitter: @ComActionSutton, Facebook: @Communityactionsutton and YouTube: @CommunityActionSutton
Healthwatch Sutton
Web: www.healthwatchsutton.org.uk/, Twitter, @HW_Sutton, Facebook: @healthwatchsutton, YouTube: @HealthwatchSutton and Instagram: @healthwatchsutton.
Sutton Carers Centre
Web: www.suttoncarerscentre.org, Twitter: @SuttonCarers, Facebook: @SuttonCarersCentre, YouTube: @SuttonCarersCentre and Instagram: @suttonyoungcarers
Volunteer Centre Sutton
Web: www.vcsutton.org.uk/, Twitter: @VCSutton1, Facebook: @VolunteerCentreSutton, YouTube: @VolunteerCentreSutton and Instagram: @volunteeringsutton.
London Borough of Sutton
Visit the council website https://www.sutton.gov.uk/, Twitter @SuttonCouncil, Facebook @SuttonCouncil, YouTube @SuttonCouncil and Instagram @suttoncouncil.