Nottingham City - Disability Direct

Added: 31/08/2010
Updated: 13/10/2010

There's a New User Led Organisation in Town! DDN

17 August 2010 saw the culmination of 7 months hard work in the form of the launch of Disability Direct Nottingham, a Centre for Independent Living.

The first step on this exciting journey actually began in Newark where the regional Personalisation Programme Roadshow to launch the User Led Organisation (ULO) regional development programme brought together representatives from The Disability Syndicate (opens new window), based in Derby and officers from Nottingham City Council. The Disability Syndicate were guest speakers at the Roadshow setting out an effective approach to meeting the needs of disabled people. The Personalisation Programme Director had secured £90k from the Department of Health to be used to stimulate the development of ULOs in the East Midlands and invited bids from organisations in areas where user involvement was under developed.

Conversations started between the Disability Syndicate and Nottingham City Council, a bid was developed, £45k funding was secured from the region and Disability Direct Nottingham was born. The rest of the approach was pretty systematic:

  1. Invest in Human Resources: recruit an experienced worker to develop the organisation
  2. Develop a User Involvement Group: get members on board in shaping the organisation
  3. Establish a relationship between members and service providers: stimulate conversation

Charlotte Throssel was recruited to develop an active member base and spent all of her time in the run up to the launch getting members on board.

The launch itself was the perfect opportunity to hit step number 3 and we were pleased to have the Mayor present along with council officers and almost 100 members and participating organisations. The council facilitated service user involvement to begin to co-produce the City's physical and sensory impairment strategy.

Jan Clark, Personalisation Programme Director said: "This is a very exciting day and there is a real sense in the room of something new and inclusive starting. It just shows what can be achieved when local authorities and people from the disabled community work together as equal partners and are driven by a common sense of purpose".

The most important thing of all was that the launch and the involvement on the day were not the end of the work of Disability Direct Nottingham and its members - but the start of a genuine working relationship between service users and service providers.