Leeds Centre for Integrated Living
Leeds Centre for Integrated Living (Leeds CIL) was set up in 1998 and provides a variety of support services for disabled and older people in the Leeds area who want to take control of any help they need with personal care and daily living tasks. They plan to further develop their services through other contracts and directly provided services to individual customers.
Rob has used his business to redevelop their website which launched at the end of June 2011 and he is a director in an advisory capacity on the LCIL Management Board.
For further information, see: http://www.leedscil.org.uk
Free to Live Leeds
Free to Live is a peer support network for people who need help or care to live independently using either a direct payment or a personal budget. The group’s volunteers set up this site to help other people in Leeds who manage their own care – or would like to know more about doing so. Their informal advice and support is free, impartial and confidential and they aim to point people in the right direction for the information that they need.
Free to Live actively engages with Leeds City Council and other social care providers, meeting monthly to discuss peer support and consultation work at the Leeds Centre for Integrated Living. More recently the group have engaged with Bradford College and York St John University, educating and sharing knowledge with the next generation of student social workers and occupational therapists. The group aim to be self sufficient within the next 12 months and are looking for volunteer funding in addition to offering their consulting services to the local community.
Rob is helping with this funding and is an active member of the group, having set up the website with financial backing from Leeds City Council, as they look to extend and replicate their network in other areas across the country.
For further information, see: http://www.freetoliveleeds.org
MyCareTracker
MyCareTracker is a online tool being developed by Rob and Charm Solution Ltd for individuals who manage their own care using either a Direct Payment or a Personal Budget. Although there is a great deal of hype currently about Putting People First and Personalisation in Healthcare, little is mentioned about the consequences of additional responsibility that come with being an employer on people who are ”vulnerable”. As if their lives were not complicated enough, being thrown into the world of employing carers is confusing on its own, multiplied considerably by the paperwork involved and organisational nightmare of coordinating rotas with different people.
MyCareTracker will help individuals manage this process and will go a long way to making lives easier and less complicated. This system is due for an early 2012 launch and is already attracting significant interest from a number of Councils who would like to be able to offer such a service to their users.
For further information, see: http://www.mycaretracker.co.uk