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Friends United

Friends United

An approach from the Stamford Forum has led to a pilot piece of work looking at combining Personalisation with Community Empowerment. An area in East Hampshire with a population of around 10,000 people has been identified for this.

This specific piece of work relates to project work with an identified group of people with a learning disability based in Alton. The group is called Friends United and they currently meet within Alton Day Services every Tuesday evening between 5.15pm and 7.45pm.

The group has been identified for a number of reasons;

• The group is run and led by people with a learning disability

• They use existing in house services and Day Service staff to access ‘day opportunities’ predominantly within the Day Service building

• They have tried to find a base within the local community and have failed

• The project is in danger of losing its funding (LDDF)

• The group consist of a wide cross section of the learning disabled community

• The group have requested support to maintain their network and access to activities

Aim of our work

We want to support the dual roles of the group, which have been identified as serving two main purposes;

• Friendship and peer support

• Access to activities and opportunities

In terms of community participation, the aim is for the group to be able to access opportunities to meet with friends, seek peer support, and be able to undertake interests, hobbies and activities at a time, and within a venue, that suits them.

In terms of community empowerment, our aim is to ensure that the group are aware of and feel able and confident enough to access community provision if they wish to do so and that the community is more receptive and aware of the needs of the group.

Secondly, we want to try to ensure that the community values the contribution [Social capital] that the learning disabled community bring to the locality.

What has happened so far?

HEADLINES:

• The group have accessed a number of different community settings.

• The group have been visited by community safety officers because of concerns about going out in their community.

• The group have a constitution, a vision and are applying for funding.

• The group have 9 memebrs interested in becoming Trustees.

• The group are looking at writing a volunteers policy.