Think Local Act Personal Tag Listing

The Easy Read document below gives an overview of the Making it Real framework. More information is available on our Making it Real webpages.

The document below gives an overview of the Making it Real framework. More information is available on our Making it Real webpages.

As part of a DH funded project in Barnsley a study was undertaken to develop knowledge and gather information to assist the development of peer support brokerage, centred particularly on people who fund their own care. This report provides an overview of sources of peer support and peer brokerage currently available in the UK for self funders.

This brokerage service provides a holistic, whole-family approach, supporting individuals and their carers to use their personal budgets to maintain their family life by recognising that each has their own needs for support. "You have given my son's life back.

As councils look to develop new and more empowering relationships with people who use their services, finding effective ways of teaching people the skills to design and manage their own support arrangements, including through peer support, is becoming increasingly important. This report shows how it is possible to build disabled people and carers' own support planning skills, rather than relying solely on professional solutions.

This guide was developed with older people and people with mental health difficulties and their supporters as well as people involved in support planning. It responds to the findings of the Personal budgets pilots evaluation, which concluded that more work was required to develop approaches to support planning and brokerage that work for all groups of people rather than just some.

The National Centre for Independent Living (NCIL) has produced a report looking at the evidence on peer support and links to personal budgets. The message from the report is that availability of peer support is essential in the drive to transform adult social care to give service users choice and control in how their individual support needs are met.

This report from Skills for Care explains the main findings of a project about independent support brokers. It talks about what they would need to know and what skills they would need.

This review, published in March 2009, looked at what information, advice and advocacy specific groups of people need. It also looked at what is available at the moment and highlighted examples of good practice.

The links below are to resources on the Department of Health user-led organisation web pages.