Making it Real in the North West - a case study

Future Directions - Community Interest Company (CIC) is a 24/7 social care provider in the North West for people with a learning disability and complex needs including autism and acquired brain injury.

Taking stock of Making it Real progress

After a year of Making it Real, they concluded that they hadn't gone far enough in delivering personalised care to residents despite earlier policy changes. Feedback from families and staff suggested that questionnaires could be improved particularly in relation to questions regarding relatives.

Investing the time producing easy read versions of questionnaires yielded a much higher response rate and useful information. Following discussions with people who use Future Direction services, staff and managers, six priority areas were filtered down to the following four "I" statements.

1. I am able to choose the people who are going to support me on a day to day basis.
2. I feel valued for the contribution that I can make to my community.
3. My staff respects my house as my home?
4. I know how to make a complaint?

Coproduction in action

People who use the services coproduced DVDs for My staff respects my house as my home, which became a popular teaching aid. They also developed an easy read complaints leaflet for I know how to make a complaint which has seen an increase in people speaking up if something isn't right about the service they receive or the person they live with.

The way ahead

On entering their third year Future Directions have coproduced another series of questionnaires. Response rates are even better.

How you can help

If you are inspired by this case study and would be interested to share your Making it Real progress, please contact us. We are particularly interested to hear from sites who have uploaded a short summary of a successful initiative which others can learn from (Step 12).