Life Choices

What Is the Life Choices project?

The Life Choices Project was set up with money from the Learning Disability Development Fund (LDDF) to support people who live at home with older family carers (over 70 years old) in the Dover and Swale districts.
Project aims:

The original Project aims were to:

Pilot a person-centred approach to planning with people with a learning disability living with older carers in the Dover and Swale districts. The aim was to plan with 5 people from Swale and 5 people from Dover.
Show how planning would ensure that people have all the right support in place before a crisis situation develops.

Project Objectives – How is the Project working?

People have been supported to plan for their futures to ensure that they have the right support in place when they move on to live independently or if family circumstances change.
People are working on their person centred plans (including health action plans) to ensure that the correct information is available when decisions have to be made about their future.
People meet with the facilitators before planning begins to ensure that they are happy with the supporter.
Everyone meets (facilitators and people with a learning disability) every two months to discuss how people’s plans are progressing and to see how people can support each other with any issues that may arise.
There is one person who co-ordinates the project who links in with the local teams and other organisations. This has helped people to access Direct Payments, be notified of possible housing options that are coming up locally, been referred to the Occupational Therapy and Speech and Language Therapists to help with daily living skills that will aid them in the future.

Life Choices Partners:

This project has been lead by the Skillnet Group in partnership with the following organisations/groups:

	Dover and Swale Integrated Teams for People with a Learning Disability (Kent County Council).
	Dover Carers Support Group.
	Swale Carers Support Group.
	Dover District Council.
	Swale Borough Council.
	Casa Support (part of the Amicus Horizon Group)

We have supported 10 people and are now supporting 8 people with their plans. This project has developed a good reputation and people are finding out about it in different ways. This includes people seeing their peers having better lives and wanting the same for themselves.
There are now people on a waiting list for this project.

People have been supported to access all local services i.e. applying for the local council housing list and local employment or education opportunities. This also leads on to people accessing leisure services, community groups or self advocacy groups and partnership groups.

The people that we have supported so far have accessed a lot more local services and have taken more control over their lives since they have been working on their plans. For example, people are meeting in cafes, pubs and resource centres and have joined local leisure centres and other clubs. People have found out about courses at College and about jobs. People have been supported to open their own bank accounts and take control over their own money.

We have also been developing housing and support options with people. Two people are looking at local housing options and are planning to move out of the family home to live independently. We have supported other people to find out about all the different options available. This work has also involved supporting their families to find out more about what is available.

One person has also been supported to be part of the audits carried out by the Healthcare Commission. This was paid work and involved him visiting and checking learning disability residential homes funded by the National Health Service. One of his main aims of his plan was to have paid work and even though this work was short term it really raised his self esteem to be an equal part of the team of inspectors who carried out the work.

We are supporting one person to use a multi media, interactive format to build his plan due to his complex communication needs.
The Person Centred Planning Network has asked the Skillnet Group Music and Arts Project and the Life Choices Project to work along side them to pilot multi media formats for person-centred planning. These will be shared across England (through all the Person Centred Planning Networks) as examples of excellent practice.

The Tizard Centre has asked people from the Project to do presentations as part of the Learning Disability course that they run. This is also paid work.