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Independent livingThe aim of this programme is to identify and understand the key barriers to achieving person-centred support for older people, disabled people and service users. It hopes to identify approaches to address these barriers which will have credibility with users and viability in policy and practice. |
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Programme summary
The broad aims of this programme are:
- to identify and understand the barriers to achieving person-centred support for older people, disabled people and service users;
- to identify approaches to address these barriers which will have credibility with users and viability in practice.
This programme looks at tools and approaches which people have said are valuable. It also looks at the opportunities and barriers within services to bringing more person-centred support. The focus is on:
- Looking backwards: what has already been learned to date about barriers to choice and control, and possible solutions?
- Looking now: what is happening, what are the exemplars of good practice? Where do problems still rest? What are the bridges and barriers to person-centred/user-controlled support?
- Looking forwards: what does this tell us about a new or reframed vision for appropriate support? Can services truly be made responsive to the needs of users or will direct payments be the only credible approach to choice and control in the future?
The major funding for this programme is now complete. At present there are a number of major projects which are scheduled to report at the end of 2007 and during 2008. These include a substantial project ("The Standards We Expect"), working with 8 local services and a wider network of 12 others. It is looking at the possibilities of bursting barriers in practice to person-centred approaches. We are also looking at the possibility of choice and control in Residential and Nursing Care, as well as user involvement in Strategic Commissioning. This latter project is looking at the way that most money is spent in local public services and asks the question if service users can have more of a say in how that spending is shaped. Drawing this together, we will also be producing the final report from our Independent Living user reference group, who have been helping shape the programme and commenting on the findings.
What do we hope to achieve by the end of this programme? We want to point to ways in which change might be possible, to point to the real (as well as the rhetorical) barriers to person-centred approaches and to be able to say some very candid things about the sustainability of "the social care system".
Calls for proposals
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Previous calls (now closed)
Details of some of the recent work we have funded may be available on the calls for proposals archive page.
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Work in progress
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Contact details
Alex O'Neil
Principal Research Manager
Alex.O'Neil@jrf.org.uk
Christine Appleton
Research Administrator
christine.appleton@jrf.org.uk
Telephone: 01904 615911
