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Story of Friends United Together
Please Report the Errrors?
impact is a £15 million centre for implementing evidence in adult social care,
funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Health Foundation,
working across the U K's four nations and with co production at its heart,
Impact draws on insights from research,
lived experience and practise knowledge to make a difference
to front line services and to people's lives.
Impact believes good support isn't just about services, it's about having a life.
Networks are one of impacts. Delivery models
in 2022 networks met across the UK over a period of six
months to talk about choice and control for people with learning disabilities.
They explored the existing evidence and
shared their own knowledge and experience.
What can help people to have more choice and control.
The network in Wales included a Co-operative created
by a group of adults with learning disabilities
who felt this model offered them choice and
control over the care and support they received.
This is the story of friends united together.
You know
we are
united together.
Hello. My name is John Wood Griffiths,
and I am a founding member of Friends United together.
Hello. My name is
Rob
Saver
I live here in West Street. I'm one of the founding members of
together. And I like football.
My name Clyde. I like to my garden
and
do all the plants that I got
on that
and Friday night together.
Come here.
My name is Marie Williams, and I live in West Street, and I love my dog, Alfie
and me. And Clive takes Alfie up the park.
My name is Joanne Bartlett.
I'm one of several business advisor across Wales I as
part of the Social Business Wales Programme employed by Compass,
I was invited along to by Community Lives Consortium
to meet the group of people that are now known as friends united together.
My name is Rick Wilson.
I'm the chief executive Community Lives consortium.
And I've been a member of the French United Together
change team since it begun.
I'm really enjoying being with a group on a monthly basis,
thinking about what practical steps we can take
to help their direct payment monies
help them to improve their lives.
Hello. My name is Lisa Banks. I'm a planning officer in Swansea Council.
The role that that I held was was
supporting the friends to sort of realise their vision
by opening doors in the local authority to conversations
that they needed to have to overcome the hurdles.
We have been friends for a long time.
Many of them have known each other for many, many years.
They've learnt to get on.
They've learnt to
face challenges. The every challenge that I've seen them face,
they've chosen to stay united,
they care
about each other's interests
together,
has brought us
all together and
I that's how I feel.
We we're all friends and we were all together
friends united together
started because our support changed.
We wanted to stay together.
I choose
who supports us and our staff.
Um Swansea Council made a decision to
retender all their supported living provision.
We needed to
do the retender to be, um,
compliant with procurement regulations and because we wanted to change
the model of care.
But at the same time,
we didn't want to force people down a road that they didn't want to go down.
We knew,
um,
some people who are currently being um supported
would possibly have a change of provider.
The local
all the chief
were
to
reach
tender
programmes
and I and I would have lost my support from my
when they were faced with a retendering exercise.
One of the biggest risks
they felt they faced was that one of them,
John, was going to be moved into another era and supported by other people. And
that wasn't gonna stand,
um, because they were united
When I heard my
part was to change it, both move
my mother brother and and and they would have.
He's upset Marie and he said, Thank all of us. We wanted people to be more informed,
and we wanted people to ask questions about what this would mean for them.
So we started thinking about direct payments as a route for people
who really didn't want to to come with us on that journey
and started to hold a series of events, um,
around direct payments that were just explaining to
people what that route would mean for them.
This group of people
wanted to, um, come together and be united,
and
they wanted to make decisions about the type of
care that they purchased with their direct payments.
For many people, the direct payments option just seemed too complicated
and, um and and held too much responsibility because essentially,
it would be people taking charge of their own care and support,
but not
the friends themselves. Um, they're a determined bunch.
And, um, we're 100%
that they would take any route they needed to in order to stay
together.
So they came to us for some support and advice around how to do this.
And community Lives Consortium and the local
authority were fully supportive of them to,
um access our support and enable them to understand what
it meant to work cooperatively and become an incorporated body.
This is where we are today.
We studied there
and we
finished up there
Cooper
meeting.
And we just want to recruit more members.
I helped them to understand,
with some easy read materials and some floor games and
various ways what it meant to be an incorporated organisation,
what the articles of association meant and how they
were gonna make decisions and govern this social enterprise,
who they would involve in those decision making
processes
and who their members could be.
And then finally signing off their articles of association
and becoming directors of a company limited by guarantee,
which is now registered with companies house
and is known as Friends United Together.
It practically gives the friends new options they didn't have before
before, when they wanted to achieve something in their lives. A
certain amount of support was commissioned for them,
and they would work with the provider organisation
to think about how it could be delivered differently. But it was still
something that was given to them.
There are a wider range of choices now with not only
having support but having the ability to control the money.
OK,
guys,
what has spreading have done for you, Marie,
on new stuff and then
right?
What he's done for me is
by having direct payments,
we can keep the staff from
CLC together.
It's a choice you are, then
a choice.
No choice at all.
You, you
the choice away.
It has given me more confidence, more choice and more independence
than money as well as support.
And the ability to shift between those two things
is giving them a much wider range of choices.
Give me more independent.
Yeah,
more independent.
What do I think people will learn from friends?
Think that may be very exciting for people
either, as an inspiration to do something similar
or as an opportunity to join in with what friends united are already doing.
I also think that
the professionals have the opportunity to learn significantly.
Um,
it is an opportunity
to realise that actually, if we share control
and if we give up control, much more interesting things are possible.
And
so that I think is inspiring, encouraging
and practically
very useful
over a long period of time
saw their vision come true and it's testament to
their determination
and their vigour in in knowing what they wanted
and harnessing the support around them
to to make that
happen. It's been an absolute pleasure
to be part of this and to play a small part in helping
supporting a group of people
to achieve what they wanted to achieve,
which at the beginning was to keep the same
provider that they've worked alongside for over 30 years
but became
something greater and
and I think the direct payment,
which was originally a vehicle for them to stay the same,
suddenly became a vehicle for them to realise
that they had within their hands the option
of a better life and being in control of their own
care and support has just led to greater opportunities for them,
which
continues today. And, um,
and is really lovely to to see
we, we would we would like to do more, more fun things together. As a group.
I want to socialise with more people in Swansea
and
show them what, uh what the Show them what fun they can have
with Fred United together.
I want to go on the cruise
with
new friends
or girlfriends that you like Together,
we want
you to join friends
together
and become members of friends united together
so we can have a bigger group friends
together.
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