6th Annual ASL Conference
February 10, 2009
Report by Helen Shields, Business Manager, Bromford Support & Board member of the ASL
The Association for Supported Living held their 6th annual conference at UMIST, Manchester, at the end of November. These conferences get better each year and this year was no exception with record numbers attending and a great line-up of speakers.
The theme of this year’s conference was personalisation and supported living and was jointly chaired by Suzie Fothergill and Bob Tindall.
Anne Williams who is the new National Director for Learning Disabilities started the proceedings talking about Valuing People Now, the need to give people with Learning Disabilities control over their own lives and how we must make it happen everywhere for everyone. The key is for all agencies to have a clear and strong commitment to work together with effective Partnership Boards. She advised that more guidance for Partnership Boards on being effective is to be released soon.
Simon Duffy, the Chief Executive of In Control talked to us about Raising our Game. Progress on the ground is happening and many people are now experiencing the reality of personal budgets with 9,000 across the country in 56 Local Authority areas. A few years ago most practitioners thought this was never going to happen but now everyone is accepting it as a reality and beginning to change their ways of thinking. There is still much to learn, it is not a static model but one to be used by good leaders. Simon told us that one of the keys to good planning is knowing the budget at the outset of the planning process.
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