Creating an Ordinary Life

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ARC’s successful three year Project in England, Creating an Ordinary Life, funded by the Department of Health, to support member organisations to embed Active Support within their Services has now come to an end but the message about Active Support is still loud and clear: People can be supported to take part in their own lives more, with just the right amount of support to achieve successful outcomes.

Active Support is an evidence based model of support that increases participation in everyday life for people with learning disabilities, at home and in the community. There is a considerable amount of evidence that shows that where Active Support is embedded within a service it has effectively increased the quality of support provided by staff, to people with moderate to severe learning disabilities, enabling a person to have a better quality of life. People are supported to take part in their own lives with just the right amount of support to achieve successful outcomes.

During this three year Project we have worked with 30 ARC Members and 480 staff, who have directly or indirectly, supported over 240 service users to take part more in their own lives.

We provided five days support to each service, which included Active Support training and on-site Interactive Training, as well as support with outcome monitoring and evaluation.

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The main aim of the ‘Creating an Ordinary Life’ Project was:

To focus on improving the quality of support for people with learning disabilities, working with the individual and support staff to deliver a more person-centred approach to living more independently.

There have been some significant changes in people’s lives. The latest newsletter articles (downloadable below) shows just how profound some of those changes have been:

  • Reductions in behaviour that is challenging
  • People developing new skills by taking part in routine activities
  • People being supported to maintain current skills
  • People with complex and profound learning disabilities being supported to be involved in their own lives

Services have also reported on improvement in health:

  • Weight loss
  • Reduction in the intake of alcohol
  • Reduction in smoking Improvement in mental health
  • Reduction in medication for mental health
  • Improvement in oral hygiene

The training and support from the project has enabled teams to review their support methods and look at what a person is doing, can do and with the right support, needs to do.

Creating an Ordinary Life Project outcomes:

Creating an Ordinary Life Newsletters:

We produce newsletters for our members with updates about the project which can be downloaded here:

If you would like to find out more about the Active Support Service please contact:

  • Lisa Lenton, Learning & Development Manager
  • Telephone 0798 3839512
  • Email: [email protected]

The project was funded by the Department of Health.

More Information: