Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Empowerment to Papworth Trust and to the people who use our services is about people having a bigger say in what
happens within the organisation but also what happens in their own life. The organisation has made a real commitment
to delivering empowerment: empowering people as far as they can and delivering services that will help society empower people.
And by that, we mean quite different things: empowerment is different for every individual.
What empowers me would not empower you, and vice versa. So it's a very individual designed service as well.
It's very new - it only started in 2007 - and I think that it's key to delivering our mission of equality, choice and independence.
It's really at the core of what we're there to do.
Papworth Trust differs because it's really listening to the individuals it's working with.
We have specific jobs - mine included - User Involvement Coordinator - that is to go out and work with people, sometimes
even on a one-to-one basis. Bearing in mind that we're delivering services to 17,000 people across the Eastern region,
that's' quite a task ahead of us. But we're aiming to do it.
The Empowerment service within Papworth Trust wouldn't necessarily do it all but it would then provide the skills to all of
our other service areas to be able to do that - to make sure we really are listening.
And we also go out and work with professionals and in businesses and in organisations to not only let them know
about disability but to make them confident about disability. We're finding that a lot of people who deliver front-line services
to people - say, on the high street - are not doing it in a great way because they're not confident in how to do it.
So we go out and build their confidence as well.
For our clients at Papworth Trust it's really about them and their life. And it's also about their support network.
And by support network I mean their friends, their family members, carers, professionals.
We're looking at the whole picture. If we deliver services in an isolated way - so, on their own - they wouldn't be meaningful.
So the way that Papworth Trust delivers its services is that it links to all areas of people's lives.
And the empowerment service is that string that runs through all of it. So through delivering all of our services we empower people.
Papworth Trust has helped Winston be more empowered in his life, firstly choosing to move from residential care to independent living in a Papworth Trust flat.
It was very scary at first because I was so used to having 24 hour care.
And it took me at least 6, 7, 8 months to get used to living on my own but I knew the support was there and I don't regret moving now.
They helped to give me more confidence really. To show that there's a world outside there for someone like myself.
I'm on the user council. I was voted on the user council. There are 20 of us and I wish there was more women on the user council.
I'm going to stand for another two years and then let someone else have a chance.
The beauty of being on the user council and helping other clients is if they've got any concerns we'll talk it out
at the user council see if we can help them. We can't make any promises but we just do our best.
Papworth has had a big impact on my life. They've given me confidence to live independently
- I never thought I'd live independently, I thought I'd be in residential care till the day I died.
I feel a lot happier with my life now. My family have been a good help to me.
They're the ones that encouraged me to go for it.
We have some challenges ahead of us, to ensure that when people think disability, or people think about a social model of disability
or equality, or choice, or independence for disabled people, Papworth Trust is the first thing that comes to their mind.
And I think that we've got some way to go with that but all of the feedback I receive about anybody that's accessed our
services or worked with us is always very positive.