The Social Care Innovation Network, TLAP’s partnership with SCIE and Shared Lives Plus, reports on phase one of its work.
The Social Care Innovation Network has been established to examine and promote ways that innovative approaches to social care and support can be supported to flourish and develop. Today it publishes the first report on its work and insights that have emerged so far. The Network is a partnership between SCIE, TLAP and Shared Lives Plus, funded by the Department of Health and Social Care.
There are many good examples of innovative approaches to care and support that are person-centred and community based. They tend to exist in pockets and are not yet seen as the core business of social care. Even small-scale innovative community-based organisations who don’t wish to grow large, struggle to survive beyond short term pilot funding. The problem is not so much a lack of innovation but finding ways for such approaches to take root more deeply in more places.
The Network is exploring ways to support the growth and spread of innovation, considering the barriers that have been identified and looking at what can be done to support innovation at local and national level. It has brought together councils, providers, citizens and national bodies to work collaboratively and creatively, in order to push the boundaries of what is possible to. A particular focus to understand the implications for commissioning and commissioners. TLAP’s own resource has been developed to showcase innovative and community-centred models of support that improve people’s lives.
The report will be of interest to all those who are interested and committed to creating a new and better form of social care – based on the principle that people want a life and not a service.
