Positive People Improvement Council

Positive People Improvement Council

Inspire's Positive People Improvement Council was officially established in its current guise in April 2017 and its current membership comprises five people we support from different geographical locations, their support staff, and the organisation's Head of Quality & Compliance, Development Manager and Communications Co-ordinator.

Over the past year, members of the Council have achieved a number of significant accomplishments – both on an individual and collective level.

These have included:

• Significantly influencing Inspire’s Strategic Plan for 2017-2022 and ensuring it closely aligns with the views of the people we support. The input from the Improvement Council for this document was discussed and ratified at one of Inspire’s Board meetings.

• Being the driving force behind the drafting of the organisation’s Involvement Policy which outlines Inspire’s commitment to ensuring that the people we support are actively involved in planning their individual service delivery arrangements.

• Reviewing and, where required, amending the organisation’s policies and procedures and creating Easy Read versions of these to ensure everyone is involved in the planning of and understands the support they receive.

• Designing and implementing a ‘Suggestion Box’ system in all services to allow the people we support to leave comments or bring to our attention causes for concern which they may not be comfortable raising with their key worker or another staff member in their own individual service.

• Leading the organisation's drive towards officially signing up to the National Involvement Network's Charter for Involvement.

All members of the Improvement Council have increased in confidence and been empowered as a result of their involvement with the group and have learnt many new skills – or increased the level of existing competencies - including public speaking, teamwork, listening, communicating and lobbying.