What is the Wokingham Social Enterprise Project?
"This project is, we think, a fairly unique piece of partnership working and has come about through the sharing of ideas and concerns between:
- Wokingham District Council, New Support Options and Norwood Ravenswood, who had been concerned about the impact in terms of cost and quality of using agency staff
- Wokingham Learning Disability Partnership Board, who have been very keen to develop employment and training opportunities for people with learning disabilities and whose Workforce Development Group had been considering the creation of a social enterprise
- People with learning disabilities in Wokingham, who have been unhappy with the support provided to them by agency staff and are seeking employment and training opportunities
A meeting to explore potential ways forward took place in April 2005, attended by representatives from Wokingham District Council, New Support Options and Norwood–Ravenswood.
From these initial meetings a Steering Group was set up to plan and oversee the creation of a new social enterprise that could:
- Provide training and consultancy by people with a learning disability in relation to learning disability awareness, staff recruitment, staff training, quality monitoring and other issues.
- Operate as an ethical employment agency to provide high quality trained and vetted agency staff and personal care assistants to support Direct Payments.
- Carry out other activities that could include employment opportunities, service brokerage or other things of benefit to people with learning disabilities in the Wokingham area.
The Steering Group is co–chaired by a Manager from New Support Options and a person with a learning disability and is made up of representatives from the Learning Disability Partnership Board, Wokingham District Council, Norwood–Ravenswood, a local advocacy group , parents and people with learning disabilities that live in Wokingham.
The Steering Group is supported by a full–time project worker who started in June 2005. Half of the funding for this post has been provided by Wokingham LDPB with New Support Options, Norwood–Ravenswood and Wokingham District Council sharing the remainder.
The challenge for the Steering Group is to move to the position where the Social Enterprise can become a reality within a timescale of six months – and it is well on the way!
The Social Enterprise will be in the form of a Community Interest Company. It will be an independent entity but its activities will be guided by the Wokingham LDPB. Very importantly, majority control of the company will be with people with a learning disability who live in Wokingham.
I think everyone involved is really excited about the project and the potential it provides for finding new ways of making things better."
Larry Grady , Wokingham Social Enterprise Project Co–Chair , August 2005
