This case study forms part of the What Good Looks Like report on people with a learning disability and autistic people. This co-produced report was commissioned from the Building the Right Support Advisory Group, as part of the wider action plan developed by the Building the Right Support Delivery Board. It has been supported by Partners in Care and Health.
Introduction
Organisations that focus on valuing people, are prepared to stick to their principles, seek to influence others and work differently. Lives Through Friends practice – as support brokers, community workers and campaigners – in order to ‘keep grounded’. They have the explicit aim of assisting people who need social care support to ‘self-direct’ and have a recognition that the current system obstructs innovation – it is overly process driven, focused on risk assessments and legal frameworks.
Through working with the system and getting professionals to think differently about solutions that are meaningful to the person, they encourage innovative thinking, seeking simple and cost-effective solutions. Their approach is based on relationships, knowing the person, living with the person, sticking with them when things get difficult.
The work of Lives Through Friends involves rebuilding, or building from scratch, those networks and supports that enable providers to work with communities in a creative and asset-based way. Having a supportive attitude to workforce is crucial, getting staff on board and retaining them with good training and pay.
Workers need to know they are valued and that they know the people they support better than professionals.”
The challenge
Lives through Friends have had to overcome some barriers to be successful in their work including
- Tackling culture and the folklore of we ‘cannot do things, cannot change’
- Shifting the power and control held by professionals
- Commissioners need to understand how to support this ambitious and creative way of working rather than obstructing it. (Lives Through Friends ‘infect’ professionals in the system with their ideas)
- The contract used by Lives Through Friends specifically states that they won’t be constrained by standard procedures, frameworks, and systems.
It is important to stick with people and they continue supporting providers for twelve months.
Having a supportive attitude to workforce is crucial – getting staff on board and retaining them with good training and pay. Workers need to know they are valued and that they know the people they support better than professionals.
Lives through Friends ‘recruit’ providers and only work with passionate leaders. Most organisations are usually off the commissioning framework so they can negotiate good rates of pay for staff.
The solution
Yes, there is much more to life than services”
Lives Through Friends is a community interest company set up in 2007. They are consultants but continued to practice – as support brokers, community workers and campaigners – in order to ‘keep grounded’. They work with the aim of building a social services system that is supplementary and complimentary to the local economy and they have the the explicit aim of assisting people who need social care support to ‘self-direct’.
The motivation to set up Lives through Friends was borne out of seeing that things needed to be different. Bob had worked in social work for over fifty years and was determined to break the rules to do things differently, because there was a recognition that the current system obstructs innovation – it is overly process driven, focused on risk assessments and legal frameworks.
What makes it good?
They challenged professionals to think and behave differently. Lives Through Friends have the time to get to know people and their families, build trust and understand triggers and behaviours. Some of what they do is simple common sense, but it’s led by the person and their family.
Today they are brought in by health/social care to support people with ‘complex reputations’, and multiple diagnoses to get out of long stay hospital beds and into the community. Lives Through Friends only get involved when they are specifically requested to do so, and families can self-refer. They work with people of all ages, often with people with at least five different diagnoses (physical, mental health, this includes many autistic people who do not have a learning disability). They are currently working with five different councils to get five people out of hospital.
They support providers for twelve months to help the individual live back in the community. This is done by helping with community networks, speech and language therapists and occupational therapy expertise, psychology, and behaviour support colleagues at Studio 3, for example low arousal, understanding of trauma.
They work with services to unblock the system and get professionals to think differently about solutions that are meaningful to the person. Lives Through Friends encourage innovative thinking, that often entails simple and cost-effective solutions. Their approach is based on relationships, knowing the person, living with the person, sticking with them when things get difficult. They support engagement with family and friends, as well as the person. Positive risk taking is well supported to help people achieve their goals.
They coach and mentor the care coordinator and identify a responsible commissioner to work closely around each person.
Through managing the economy, working out with the family and friends what does the best look like and developing a multiplicity of options things can change. The work of Lives Through Friends involves rebuilding or building from scratch networks and supporting and enabling providers to work with communities in an asset-based way, often thinking outside the box.