Social and leisure activities, friendships and meeting opportunities and all the things that go towards improving quality of life have not usually been taken into account before when providing services for people with Learning Disabilities. Valuing People and Valuing People Now recognise the need for people to have an active social life in order that they can live happy and fulfilled lives.
West Berkshire Mencap puts on many social events and is very popular with members but there is still a significant group of people who cannot access clubs, especially in the evening, because of a lack of transport. On the other hand, sometimes care providers/supported living settings take along a single resident and carer, in a vehicle which can hold six or more people, thereby having “wasted” space on board. We would like to investigate the possibility of putting these two groups of people together in order that everybody who wants to attend a club, has that opportunity. If vehicle-sharing took place this could help alleviate staffing difficulties for residential settings. It would have to be fair to all participants, however, but could work in a similar way to a baby-sitting pool.
Until preliminary work is done to test feasibility around care needs, eligibility criteria for participants, geographical spread and gaps, etc etc, we do not know whether this could work as a participating cooperative using existing care home staff, or whether it would work better as a social enterprise, with paid drivers. In West Berkshire we are lucky inasmuch as there is not generally a lack of vehicles, it is the drivers who are hard to find!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.