Agenda item

Disability Initiative

Minutes:

The Committee received a presentation from Lucy Brown, Chief Executive, in respect of the work of Disability Initiative.

Disability Initiative (DI) was a charity which specialised in the provision of adult services to individuals with complex physical disabilities and acquired brain injury. DI provided a coordinated, slow-stream programme of rehabilitation catered specifically to the individual and included a variety of activities, accredited educational courses and a number of therapies.

DI supported 75 adults, whom were primarily based within Surrey Heath, and were based within the DI resource centre on Knoll Road, which was owned by the Council. The Council had provided the organisation with a 99 year lease of the building (starting from the year 2000) and 15 car parking spaces at a peppercorn rent.

An early meeting of the charity’s trustees, many of which had backgrounds in healthcare and risk, had set out DI’s path in the pandemic. It acknowledged that all its clients were high risk and the organisation pivoted their services to identify the needs of DI’s clients and how the charity could meet these needs.

Within the first few weeks of the pandemic, DI received a grant of £7,200 from the Council which covered DI’s immediate costs as grants and fundraising opportunities dried up. After pouring huge resource into meeting the immediate needs of DI’s clients and family, DI were especially keen to get its clients back into its premises, motivated, stimulated and actively involved in its offered activities. Furthermore, after the pandemic hit the disabled community especially aggressively, DI were looking to increase its initiatives to upskill its clients in respect of IT and technology, and in turn reduce any social-isolationism resulting from their lack of skills and knowledge. This included early plans to produce a Disability Initiative App and make use of opportunities around the teaching of basic coding.

Arising from Members’ questions and comments the following points were noted:

·         DI and Parity for Disability catered for a slightly different cliental. However the leadership of the two charities often collaborated by sharing policies and best practice as well as by conducting regular peer reviews. Furthermore, it was added that DI were welcoming of new partnership working opportunities in the future. 

·         DI worked hard in conjunction with Frimley Park Hospital to rehabilitate clients who were coming out of hospital so they would not have to return. DI’s psychologists and equipment such as mace beds meant that such well-thought out schemes were successful.

·         During the pandemic DI had to deal with clients and their families, which had complex issues, such as psychological stress as a result of impact of the pandemic and being unable to visit DI’s premises. This was then coupled with the impact on the full time carers of DI’s clients.

 

The Committee thanked Lucy for her insightful presentation and for attending.

 

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