Life in the Community was a three year project funded by the Mental Health Foundation and the Baily Thomas Charitable Fund to find out how people with higher support needs could be helped to build relationships with their local communities.
We had four partners on the project, each working with up to 10 people over a two year period:
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Brandon Trust in partnership with three separate local authorities: North Somerset, Bristol City and South Gloucestershire
- William Morrison Trust based in Darlington
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The Tamarisk Trust in the London Borough of Barnet
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Grapevine in Coventry.
Our partners’ job was to find new ways of helping these people and their families to plan for a future that relied less upon specialist learning disability services and looked more to the kind of support available to everyone. There was no one model for doing this, but a common element of the project has been the role of ‘community connectors’. They help turn plans into action by matching the skills and interests of individuals with opportunities in local communities.
Here are just some of the features of community connecting that emerged during the project:
- It is a service best provided by small independent organisations.
- It is provided at times convenient to the ‘customer’ and their carers (often evenings and weekends) and in a variety of locations.
- Connectors spend time getting to know people with high support needs, the people who are important to them and what they want to do with their lives.
In each year of the Life in the Community project, we have held a Building Community Networks conference for people to come together and share ideas. The last Building Community Networks was held in February 2009.
More information
If you would like to find out about our training and consultancy work to enable people with high support needs to be involved in their communities contact Paul Swift pswift@fpld.org.uk or Molly Mattingly mmattingly@fpld.org.uk.
The project has been made possible with the help of a 3-year action research grant from the Mental Health Foundation and The Baily Thomas Charitable Fund
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