Sophia Chung

I have been a KCCA Director since 2004. I have attended most of the Board meetings and West Kent Forum meetings & occasionally the East Kent Forum meetings. As our service is specialising in Community Support (CSS), I have the lead role for it. I share my knowledge & research findings at KCCA meetings.

There have been many new, exciting & difficult challenges due to various new Government initiatives, i.e., Supporting People, Valuing People White paper, District Partnership Board and formation of local District Partnership Group (DPG), Person Centred Planning Approaches, etc. I have attended many conferences and meetings to try to understand the complexity of these initiatives at my own company’s expense.

In Kent, a District Partnership Board (DPB) is established in response to the Government’s White paper re Valuing People. The aim is to promote better lives & services for people with learning disabilities. It has decided that there should be 12 local groups within Kent to address local issues. Medway have also got their own Partnership Board. I participated in setting up DPG in Tonbridge and Malling area and am now a co-Chair of the Forum. The Government has given a pot of money to KCC to enable each local group to achieve their aims.

I am a member of the Steering Group of Kent Acquired Brian Injury Forum (KABIF), the aim of the group is to map the existing services & to set up a website. Hopefully the shared information will provide better services for people with head injuries.

We are also members to ARC (Association for Real Change) & KCHA (Kent Care Homes Association)

I am proactive in my approach. Recently I researched into the charges of the merchant services & discovered that another bank is offering a better monthly rate for the terminal. I informed KCCA Directors via the Chair. We are pleased to say that RBS has now dropped their monthly charges for the Kent Card to match their competitor’s.

As the majority of the members of KCCA are Domiciliary Providers, I do feel strongly that CSS should continue to have a voice within KCCA.