From the very beginning, Integrate always valued the benefits of partnership working and in its early days concentrated on working with the local community focusing on understanding
collective interests and the real meaning of community care.

In 1983, Integrate had partnered with North British Housing Association to secure housing provision for the first service users to be re-settled with our support and this joint project heralded the birth of our Charity. NBH were investing in various areas of Preston and Central Lancashire regenerating older terraced housing as well as being the lead agency in the major Central Lancashire development. Together they identified the Plungington area as ideal to meet both their needs. For Integrate it was near to the town centre, but had good amenities, parks, shops, pubs, GP’s, banks, PO etc. It also importantly was on good routes for public transport and had a range of housing with grant funding for redevelopment but near to each other.

Given the extensive scale of housing refurbishment the project represented in the area, it was a major redevelopment project and long established communities were having to cope with significant disruption and in some cases relocation. Accordingly street committees were developed to support good communication and to see how the developers could take account of local needs and concerns.

Integrate was thus able to join into this activity as part of the local community and offer some support and resources. Integrates Chief Executive joined the committee and was part of its transition into the Plungington Social Committee, founded to support local community social activities for older people, families and children of the area. For many years through her, Integrate supported the committee’s operations through practical support and by directly supporting the volunteer activities the annual Xmas party run from funds raised for local older people with and in Eldon St primary school, annual outings to Southport, Blackpool, Chester Zoo etc and raising funds through an annual fete. Integrate have also been involved in supporting Neighbourhood Watch in relevant areas also. This all supported Integrate’s commitment to the local community and ensured some communication as well as some involvement for the tenants settling there in some of the outings as well as helping at the fetes.

As the development completed, Preston Polytechnic (now UCLAN) was also contributing to the area with some outreach work and most specifically supported the development with St Emmanuel church of the community centre. Again, Integrate’s chief executive joined the new committee and assisted in the development and running of the new centre. Tenants were encouraged to join and this meant opportunities for new activities /involvements in the community.

One long-remembered was the Old Tyme Dancing developed by local older people Integrate service users took part. Integrate also developed a craft club and was able to recruit a volunteer who was a retired OT and this ran for some 10 years with a regular local community membership as well as one of our service users attending. Preston College at the time only had adult literacy classes so they provided some teaching hours to develop some adult classes for people which Integrate ran in the core house but also in church halls, Preston Poly. IT dept., and in a local community centre.

Integrate also partnered with the Probation Service and then with Preston City Council in long-term unemployed projects developing work pathways on government
schemes for long-term unemployed people.

More recently, in terms of Housing partnership working, Integrate has developed strong relationships with Eaves Brook and Care Housing in further housing development,
where specialist needs have been provided for.

More widely, the charity has also contributed to other local voluntary organisations in Preston from the local CVS to the Community Care Forum organised by Community Council for Lancashire (now Community Futures);

Integrate is a current and active member of Preston Community Network, chairing the local SELNET, as well as being a founder member of E-.Net supporting employment for disabled people in the North-West. Our Project Director who has specialist knowledge in managing risks concerning forensic issues sits on the Regional Police Liaison Committee and is regularly consulted as a specialist advisor, offering his expertise in considering risk issues in the community. He has also been involved across the years in task group work on vulnerable adults protection and in developing and contributing training within our partnerships, as well as in developing an audit tool on health issues used locally by a range of service providors. Integrate have also been involved as members of Preston City’s Special Needs Housing Forum and more recently took part in the Supporting People Forums and Integrate, along with two other agencies, will represent the long-term adult intensive housing support services sectors in Central Lancs.

Professionally Integrate has aimed to make a positive local and regional contribution with a major driver being a concern to positively influence practice. In the early years, we directly contributed on working groups to Social Services Training Strategy and the development of its community care assessment framework. We provided representative membership on the County Training
Group (learning disabilities) and have contributed to various quality exercises for the local authority including day service review work and review of their children’s respite services.

In supporting and advancing the position around healthcare support for service users, we worked closely in Preston with Health Services in developing a joint training team developing and delivering free training for many years to local staff across a range of needs, and most recently we collaborated on the development of joint physical intervention training, providing trainer support and
also providing the preventive training.

For over 20 years, we provided both social work placements and practice support to assessment panels and boards for Preston Poly (UCLAN) and were originally involved in the development and management of the then new social work qualification, the Diploma in Social Work. Over the years we supported all aspects of the course, including some teaching, took on the Treasurer of the social work placements grants and various practice placement projects management and hosting. For many years we have continued to be involved in the steering and development of these courses, sitting on and chairing various course development committees and delivering learning events etc. In addition, we were centrally involved in the development of the social work Post-Qualification training and the Lakes and West Pennines Consortium, originally hosted by Lancaster University, but in recent years by St Martins. The Chief Executive as well as representing on the management group, also chairs the PQ Assessment Board due to complete at the end of September 2008.

Workforce issues have been at the heart of some of our partnership work and we have represented our sector on the Confederation and Regional Health Learning Disabilities workforce sub-group informing and supporting development work in training and workforce development, during its latter stages our Chief Executive being the vice chair and chair of the group. She also represented the sector on Skills for Care (SfC) North West Regional committee and is currently a representative on the SfC PQ Regional and local networks as well as on the social work training forums.

Today, we still provide 6-8 social work placements per year, mainly for UCLAN and internationally, for a detachment of the Red Cross based in Germany. There is also some nurse student placements, mainly for St Martins. Most recently, building on our previous training partnership work with the PCT, we have been central in the development of a new training partnership with Central Lancs PCT, Linkability, United Response and Shared Approach within a franchise arrangement with PRT.

A major part of our partnership work is in contributing to the Learning Disability Partnership Board work on sub-groups as well as representing on the Board. Integrate has senior representation on most sub-groups, including the Day Services modernisation, Housing and Respite, Health, Person-Centred Planning, Quality, Workforce and Ethnic Minority groups and have chaired the Provider Network and Workforce sub-groups.

A major partnership development project has been the founding of the Lancashire Learning Disabilities Consortium (LLDC) which is a network of voluntary organisations working in learning disability services in Lancashire, concerned to support good practice and represent issues together. Shared Approach and Integrate got together initially concerned for effective representation
and a voice for the sector. Integrate’s Chief Executive chairs the group currently and over time the group has successfully represented issues to Supporting People, Adult Services, contracts etc and has been able to obtain resources supporting the wider learning disability sector’s needs through grants from the LWDP. The Consortium has been concerned to act to influence practice overall from a level of practice experience and expertise.

Across the years one of the benefits of the consortium has been the shared values bases and trust developed between us which has enabled us to partner short-term with both Linkability and Shared Approach to out together short-term services to give individuals time whilst services were organised.

In addition, Integrate has assisted in the development of VOISE as a training and representative charity supporting primarily the needs of smaller charities and those not necessarily concerned with commissioned services, and Integrates CEO sits on their Board. In addition, she has represented the LLDC and sectors of mental health and learning disabilities on the LWDP,
joining the Board when it formed as a company. 

Integrate has also more recently joined LMHS a mental health consortium working with health to develop Consortium bids. In addition, we have worked in partnership with Prescap across the years, introducing and working with arts with adults with learning disabilities. Following the Help Direct Gateway service tenders we have agreed to be in partnership with

Age Concern (Preston and S/Ribble) the lead agency in its development in our area.

We have, in short a wealth of experience in collaborative partnership working across a broad range of areas and with many types of organisation. Integrate understands the need to operate in an open and engaged way with organisations across the community and is eager to benefit and advance the best interests of service users by doing so.

LIST:
Formal partnerships:
Places for People (NBH as was) formal contract housing management

Eaves Brook housing management contract

Care Housing
LLDC - formal consortium membership and chair
E-Net - formal consortium membership
SELNET - membership and chair

LMHS
LWDP - CEO is Board member and rep for mh and ld
VOISE - CEO is Board member Lakes and West Pennines PQ consortium management and chairs assessment board
PLURISA - Physical Intervention Training Team (Central Lancs area)

Lakes and West Pennines PQ Consortium
Partnership working:
Plungington community Centre
HDG - Preston/SR
Prescap
UCLAN - social work placements
St Martins - nurse placements
LCC/SSD task groups - Training Strategy; community care assessment framework: Q/A exercises residential and childrens respite in learning disabilities;

Red Cross

Rep on County LD Training Group
Preston Joint Training Team
Preston Physical Intervention Training Team
Police Liaison Committee
Skills for care - PQ network Lancs and Cumbria; and NW regional PQ network
Supporting People C/Lancs forum rep.
Preston and Central Lancashire Partnership Boards:
Sub-groups:
Day Services modernisation, Housing and Respite, Health, Person-Centred Planning, Quality, Workforce, Ethnic Minority, Workforce & Provider Network