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General Assembly 2007: Huge increase in satisfaction with CrossReach

In its second annual report to the General Assembly the Church’s Social Care Council, CrossReach, will remind the Assembly that it is in the light of the gospel that it continues to provide a wide range of social care services throughout Scotland.

These services are being delivered by a staff group dedicated to putting their faith into action – and this is highlighted by an almost 20 per cent increase in positive comments from CrossReach service users during 2006.

Under its new senior management team Crossreach has consolidated its position as one of the leading social care charities in Scotland. 2006 has seen a number of positive developments including the completion of a number of upgrading projects at facilities for older people, the re-opening of the visitor centre at Perth Prison and, in association with the West of Scotland Housing Association, the building of a new residential unit for children with learning difficulties.

Innovative ways of extending care to people who misuse alcohol and/or drugs are being explored, including the ongoing negotiations with local authority funders to provide support through the use of new technologies and client group-specific software packages. The Post-Natal Depression Service has continued its development with invaluable support from The Guild and has become a national leader in this field with further development opportunities opening up. The success of these services is reflected in CrossReach being asked to take a lead role in a number of National Conferences in 2007/8.

The Assembly will hear that the financial environment remains challenging due to changing care trends and cash restrictions across the whole local government care sector. Improvements have been achieved in some areas of funding, particularly in Services to Older People, but other services continue to struggle to obtain sufficient funding to operate. In particular CrossReach has a 25 year history of providing counselling services across Scotland but these have been funded mainly through donations.

The cost of providing such services has proved prohibitive and a review of these services is underway to find a sustainable way forward. A series of unplanned difficulties within a few areas brought cost pressures and required hard work to achieve solutions, but a ten percent reduction in the overall operating deficit was achieved. There is a historical dependency on income from gifts, legacies and fundraising activities for which CrossReach is grateful, but these sources of funding are not reliable to base services on. For this reason a programme of financial recovery has been initiated to match income with expenditure which will take effect over the next three years.

The report concludes with an outline of targets for 2007/2008 which include achieving a 90 per cent staff complement by March 2008 – CrossReach has significant recruitment problems in rural and high income localities. Other targets include working towards the achievement of a balanced budget by 2011 the political and professional positioning of CrossReach in Scotland.

This year the Council will include a vision statement which calls on the whole Church to enter into a social care partnership as part of its great commission. The Assembly will be reminded that the most valuable and unique selling point with CrossReach is the vast network of carers represented by the local congregations across Scotland, and that CrossReach is only a part of that greater work.

Ends

nrga/14/04/07

Monday 16 April 2007

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