Person-centred planning/Circles of support

For the last 6 months I have been working at Equal People. It’s been a great time! Before that I had been working in Australian and UK government. I worked on incredible projects and with excellent, talented people. I also learnt and grew so much. I thought I could make a difference. But I wasn’t seeing it. Many hours and projects that didn’t get to see the light of day, I thought there has to be another way.

I thought back to when I worked at Equal People for 8 years, during my 20s. I grew up with the staff and service users there, many of whom are still the same loveable characters! I am back there, now with my skills as a service designer. And it feels good. As well as my during the week job as Activities worker, and later Activities Manager, I would volunteer on weekends to take service users to trips out, to the Victoria and Albert Museum, Transport Museum or to the seaside. I grew up with my chosen London family. I also spent many Christmases with them, where neither of us had family (mine were all in Australia) and so we made the most of it!

From brilliant support workers, service users, and their parents and friends, I learnt about Circles of Support. Circles of support is a group of family, friends and supportive workers who come together to give support and friendship to a person to give them person-centred care. At Equal People we used to have a whole team dedicated to doing this.

The idea is to have important other professionals such as social workers, psychologists, care managers and support workers in your team, to ensure you get the best advice and help to make decisions in your life. They give a holistic view, by being altogether, and helping you to make the best decisions.

I’ve always thought how wonderful it would be if everyone had the same — a trusted cool gang to call on to talk about things that are worrying you, including how to plan for the future and emergency situations. The group could be made up of other important people in your life — like your therapist, your doctor or even your dentist. The feeling that you are part of something and part of someone else’s circle, all under one roof. That’s my dream.

So I am back at Equal People and I have been running a series of workshops to understand what this holistic heath, wellbeing and care could look like.

We’ve been running our usual activities schedule, a festival about Feeling Good and I’ve also been running workshops, based on the research project I have been doing, which is currently called Design For Life.

I am happier, I am brighter and I am coming off my anti-depressants. And I feel alive again.