Our past self advocacy projects
Stronger Voices...Strong Support
Stronger Voices…Strong Support was a peer support project funded by the Department of Health supporting adults with personal budgets by other adults who themselves have used a personal budget.
The project aimed to give disabled people and people who use adult social care more choice and control over their lives and the support they received. There was support around the changes to adult social care and the project provided different levels of help. Drawing on people’s personal experiences of personal budgets, disabled people were supported to access one, find out what their rights were and how to have their needs met most effectively in a way that suited them.
The project enabled disabled people who had used personal budgets to support others through information, guidance and mentoring.
Stronger Voices Evaluation Report
Experts by Experience
The experts by experience project was developed to improve social care services by involving people who use them in the Commission for Social Care Inspection process.
CSCI had contracts with 3 national and 5 local support organisations to recruit, train and support experts by experience throughout the project. Inspectors volunteered to be part of the project and 134 inspections were scheduled to include an expert by experience. Particular service groups were targeted in different regions, including DAD.
“This is one of the most positive things that CSCI have introduced in a long time, and should be the norm for homes for people with a learning disability, not the exception. The insight that the experts have provided has been invaluable, and they have been extremely well received by both care homes” (Inspector)
Experts by Experience Evaluation Report
Citizen Expert
The Citizen Expert project was a 16 month project, established by DAD when it successfully quoted to support Darlington Borough Council in the Engagement in the Transformation of Social Care.
The project was successful in developing a pool of screened, trained Citizen Experts, all of whom had experience of using social care, to support the local authority involve service users and in some case co produce work together. The model has been based on DAD’s experience of working with the previous Commission for Social Care Inspection, now CQC, on piloting and implementing the ‘Experts by Experience’ programme nationally.
How you can support us
As a local organisation we very much rely on the support of our local community. We support over 2,000 people every year to have greater choice and control and remove the barriers that disabled adults and children experience in their everyday lives. But we need YOUR help.