SKILLS II aims to improving skills and changing lives through self-directed support. The main purpose of the disability services is to gain social inclusion and equal citizenship for persons with disabilities. Yet often persons with disabilities experience that either the support systems are not supporting individual choices, staff working in disability services do not have the needed skills to support people individually or that managers/leading social workers/community leaders lack the skills and competencies in promoting the change in their organisations. Many persons with disabilities are still forced to passively accept the services and support they are offered even if that kind of support and services are not suitable for them. Self-Directed Support is an existing mechanism for persons with disabilities to gain more control and freedom on choice in their everyday life, but it is not widely used in Europe, even though it is proven to be an efficient way for persons with disabilities and organisations to organize services in person-centered way. This is why we need cultural, social and leadership change so that persons with disabilities can have real opportunities for change in their everyday lives. The project will help people use and further develop the current self-directed support learning materials and in particular: - Help people translate and adapt them for different countries - Establish interactive e-learning modules In addition, and with the target of increasing demand for the primary learning on self-directed support we will work with: - Social workers who assess needs and develop support solutions - Managers in service providers who can adapt their way of working to support self-direction - System leaders who can increase the opportunity for people to use self-directed support Our proposal is to grow and strengthen learning about self-directed support by growing the capacity of systems to offer self-directed support and the demand for self-directed support from across the communities of Europe. In particular, Europe will benefit by ensuring that learning on best-practice is shared so that the pace of change accelerates: lessons learned in one country can be shared in others; people who have solved problems in one country can encourage and support leaders in another; countries can learn from earlier efforts to avoid mistakes and make faster changes. The critical elements of learning will combine: - Self-assessment of application of human rights principles in current systems - Creation of a network of possible pilot sites for extension of self-directed support across Europe - Design of local pilot programmes for implementation of self-directed support - Intensive technical assistance and training from global experts - Local application of SKILLS materials and further development based on feedback - Establish commitment from tertiary education providers (universities and colleges) - Ongoing peer support and mentoring as groups develop their own local plans for change - More detailed mapping and tracking of progress across Europe to support lobbying and learning from best-practice - Establishing an international platform for online learning, webinars and mentoring - Strengthen European leadership network to establish European norms and policy development The key element of is co-operation: self-directed support is a bigger change of ideology, leadership and a way of organising support, so the cross-sectoral co-operation is fundamental between policy makers, researchers, service providers, public authorities, NGO´s, persons with disabilities and their family members.
We wanted to grow and strengthen learning about self-directed support by growing the capacity of systems to offer self-directed support and the demand for self-directed support from across the communities of Europe. We also wanted to accelerate the pace of change by sharing best practises and knowledge so that people who have solved problems in one country can encourage and support leaders in another; countries can learn from earlier efforts to avoid mistakes and make faster changes. Collective work helps to move forward and put pressure on national and transnational systems. We also wanted to contribute to the realization of human rights for persons with intellectual disabilities, to support the right to choices, information and inclusion. Our goal was to built a network which will continue after the project for people and organisations who were commited to develop and support Self Directed Support.
Self-Directed Support is an existing mechanism for persons with disabilities to gain more control and freedom of choice in their everyday life, but it is not widely used in Europe, even though it is proven to be an efficient way for persons with disabilities and organisations to organize services in person-centered way. The opportunity to use self-directed support exists, but it is limited. In some countries good systems exist, but they are limited to just some groups (e.g. perhaps only people with physical disabilities are allowed to use the new system.) In some countries suitable laws may exist (e.g. Italy) but there is little awareness of how to apply these laws to enable self-directed support. In some countries (e.g., Germany) new projects on self-directed support are emerging but need testing and expanding. In some other countries awareness of self-directed support is almost non-existent. There is a need for cultural, social and leadership change so that persons with disabilities can have real opportunities for change in their everyday lives. KVPS has a long experience in developing SDS and this project was an opporturnity to share our knowledge and built a network with other organisation which had similar goals and values.