History of Services for Independent Living

History Of Services for Independent Living

• 1996: Organisation begins as Herefordshire Centre of Independent Living (HCIL) when a group of disabled people begin campaigning for a pilot Direct Payment scheme in Herefordshire.
  
• 1998: Herefordshire Council (HC) awards HCIL a contract to operate a pilot Direct Payments Support Service (DPSS) for 9 months and HCIL employs first p/t member of staff who works out of Local Authority daycentre.
  
• 2000: HCIL has four part time staff and move into premises leased from HC.
  
• 2001: The Payroll Service is developed and rolled out in response to Service User’s needs.
• 2002: Three year grant funding from Comic Relief to develop Service User Involvement at HCIL. Money used to employ part time worker who set up a Service User Forum and began small scale peer support & mentoring activity.
  
• 2003: HCIL Board decides to pilot with four service users a unique form of Home Support Service meeting the needs of people who want control and choice over their support, but who do not want to be, or can’t be, an employer . This service is modelled on direct payments employment practice within the constraints of CSCI standards and regulations. The Independent Living Service becomes a HC Approved Provider and is registered with CSCI.
  
• 2006: HCIL commences a pilot Support Brokerage project for people with learning difficulties in partnership with HC. Aim is to provide approximately 40 people with support with planning to use an Individual Budget. Project extended for a further 2 years until March 2009.
  
• 2007: Financial Administration Service developed in response to Service User needs and also as a means for individuals who were deemed ‘unsuitable’ for Direct Payments (because of inability to manage the funding) to be able to access them.
  
• 2008: Grant funding from Herefordshire Primary Care Trust and Herefordshire Council for a full time Community Resource Worker post within HCIL. Aim of post to support people considering a move from residential living to a home of their own. The Independent Living Service received ‘three star excellent’ rating following CSCI (now Care Quality Commission) inspection.
• 2009: Organisation becomes Services for Independent Living and restructures to meet current objectives. SIL launches new name with a Celebrating Independent Living event to showcase the community, leisure and support services which are available to purchase with an Individual Budget and to enable individuals to interact with these services. The event also held workshops to give individuals information on planning for an Personal Budget. The DPSS joined forces with the Payroll Service and the Financial Administration Service and became the Employers Support Service to provide seamless and one stop support to employers. Funding secured for ‘Peer to Peer support with Individual Budgets’ year long project. Two collaborative funding applications in process. One to the Department of Health Excellence Fund and the other to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. SIL starts to research needs and opportunities in surrounding counties for our services. User Led Organisation funding received from Department of Health. SIL have always been a ULO but the funding helped us become recognised us as the ULO for Herefordshire. We were able to review and establish additional policies and procedures around our board and service user participation and discover more opportunities to involve service users and increase our membership and volunteering. We have developed new links with other third sector organisations and done more collaborative working and increased cross referrals to support the needs of groups such as older people and carers. As a result we have been able to create many networking opportunities with ULO's around England and exchange our knowledge and experience in areas such as Direct Payments and Personal Budgets.
  
• 2010: Due to the success of Support Brokerage in the past, HC asked SIL to work with them again with Support Planning and this project has now begun.

• 2011 – in April 2011, together with Age Concern Hereford and Localities, Herefordshire Carers Support (HCS), Services for Independent Living (SIL)  joined forces to stage a free one day event (the first of its kind in the county) bringing telecare and assistive technology to carers, older people, disabled people and the professionals who support them.

  In May 2011 - Services for Independent Living (SIL) won competitive funding of £300,000 from the Social Enterprise Investment Fund (managed by the Department of Health) to spend on purchasing new premises.  The fund was available to support the delivery by social enterprises of innovative health and social care services and products and was available to User Led organisations like SIL. 

  July 2011 - SIL were accredited with the ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) 9001. This is an internationally recognised quality management system which provides proof that a business has implemented an effective quality management system and evidences that a consistently high service is provided

  From 1^st October  2011 SIL were awarded a contract to provide a Direct Payments Support Service in the County of Torfaen. SIL were particularly pleased with the outcome as the contract scoring was heavily weighted towards quality, meaning that they could see that our current service in Hereford was a quality service as well as good value for money. Feedback also said that SIL had excellent service delivery and a clear understanding of issues and solutions for disabled and older people.