How to set up a project

Families have learnt a significant amount through developing their projects. None of them would say its been easy. But they have an awful lot to share from overcoming shared challenges to unique solutions. This chapter isn’t designed to offer you an exact plan to follow for setting up your own supported living, you will have your own ideas, relationships and contexts to navigate. We hope it will act as a guide, offering ideas and advice as you need it throughout your journey.

Group of people outside their house holding a cheque

This chapter explores the following key areas:

Building a group, relationships and vision.
Role of the family.
Ongoing support for the project.
Working with statutory services.
Finding partners and allies.
Finding a property.
Care Provider.
Housing Provider.
Benefits and money.
Transition planning.
Tripping points- EG Certificate of lawfulness, Deputyship.

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Key issues

Building a group, relationships and vision

Finding the right group of both young people and families is a key ingredient in making a project work. While it is essential the young people want to live together and have positive relationships, the families relationship and ability to work together is important for the set up and long-term success of the project.

Building a vision

Finding people who share your vision, drive and are ready to start this journey at the same time as you is the challenge.

Families have found it really helpful to develop a shared vision for the project amongst all the families. It was helpful to understand where the points of compromise and boundaries were from the beginning. This helped everyone understand what they were working towards and have something to fall back on if there were disagreements. Having a shared understanding from the beginning prevents groups from moving forward together when they don’t want the same things.

It is useful spending time on describing criteria by which you will judge eventual success or failure to succeed. This process helps to check if you all share a common picture. It also helps in the selection of a care provider.

My primary vision was for Alex to be settled in his own home but as a consequence of that I wanted to create something new, so others can follow it. That might not all work, but I wanted a parent led model others can use. The flexibility in the direct payment makes that possible. There is no recognition of the work parents do anyway, having to navigate the system, I want people to be able to take things out of it and learn from what we’ve done.

"The shared vision of all families and trusting that we are ‘in this together’ for the outcomes of our children."

Resources

Thinking Ahead Guides

offer some great guides to help you and your young person plan the future you want.