Developing person-centred approaches so people can be more included
Introduction
United Response is a national charity with over 30 years experience of providing services for people with learning disabilities or mental health needs. Built around the changing needs of the people it supports, United Response operates over 200 services across England and Wales and supports around 1,500 people. United Response offers a range of person-centred support from supported living to 24-hour residential care, and support for people who want to work to find meaningful employment.
Many of the people we support have complex needs, including physical disabilities, hearing and/or visual impairments, and behaviour which challenges. Through our work we aim to provide high quality services to support people to become more engaged in day-to-day activities and, where possible, to live more independent lives. In order to ensure we continue to do this, we believe that it is important to evaluate the effectiveness of our work.
This report outlines a ground-breaking project carried out by United Response and the Tizard Centre to evaluate the impact person-centred approaches are having on the lives of people with learning disabilities.
This report has been written by Bev Ashman from United Response and Dr Julie Beadle-Brown from the Tizard Centre. The evaluation complements our ongoing quality assurance and auditing processes and makes a considerable contribution to disability research in the UK. The study is the largest study in the world focusing on the impact of person-centred approaches.