History

IAS was formed in 1988

IAS was formed in 1988 with a commitment to provide high quality support services for people with learning disabilities. From this date over 200 people have moved into supported tenancies. These services are provided within contracts with Salford DHA/MBC, Oldham MBC, Trafford MBC and Wigan MBC. Originally the majority of the places were occupied by people who moved from long stay hospitals as part of the closure programme. Over time they have moved on or died and their budget has been used to create appropriate opportunities for people who have always lived in the community. More recently IAS has developed a range of community support services and alternatives to day services in Salford, Oldham and Wigan, which are widely used by the respective purchasing authorities. Within Salford IAS provides a supported employment service.

IAS has an innovative and progressive approach to service provision and is constantly seeking not only to improve the quality of existing services but to find alternative, cost effective ways of achieving its basic goal of meeting the needs of each individual. Implicit in this approach is a desire to identify and develop the 'next generation' of appropriate service models. An example of this is that over the last five years IAS has supported over 40 people to move on into their own individual tenancy. Mostly this has been achieved within existing budgets. We believe it is unique for a provider to enable so many people to move away from group homes to their own home with appropriate support. We have done this in partnership with the people supported, their families and the local authority.

Accredited by City and Guilds

IAS is an assessment centre accredited by City and Guilds and is currently approved to assess care at level two, three and four. The centre may also train and assess its own assessors and internal verifiers. In total there are six internal verifiers and sixteen assessors actively supporting staff to achieve these awards. Within Wigan, IAS are members of the joint training partnership and this has given the opportunity to access funds from Skills in Care (T.S.I) to enable us to promote NVQ. Staff have also taken up NVQ training via the training partnership. By this training and the use of our own internal resources it has been possible to meet the needs of all staff. We are committed to reaching national standards and have exceeded these in all parts of the company. Senior managers and team leaders have achieved, or are working towards, either care level four or the registered manager's award, and senior support worker leaders have level three in care. Support workers are working either towards level two or three dependent on their role, prior learning, experience and career development. We recognise the need for a trained workforce and commit resources to a wide range of training to achieve this.

In March 2002, after a 15 month process involving in-depth consultation with the people we support, their relatives and other significant allies, we managed to de-register all the small Residential Care Homes in Salford and Trafford. This has enabled all the people we support to become tenants of their own homes and to receive personal benefits that allow them to exercise far greater choice in how they live their life and what they can afford. The de-registration also helped fund additional support so that people could receive greater input in learning skills that promote independence and greater control in life.

New relationships in the community

IAS believe that a key role for staff is to be able to enable the people we support, not only to maintain existing friendships and relationships, but also to intentionally support the development of new relationships in the community. We have developed this in a number of ways. One involved the people we support, their families, staff teams and well connected members of the community in community connecting workshops. We are also pioneering person centred recruitment which promotes self advocates involvement, local recruitment and matching applicant's skills and interests to how people are telling us they wish to spend their time. In order to ensure staff become community bridge builders it is essential that they are clear about the expectations of their role, therefore all staff members are required to attend a five day induction course during their probationary period which includes training around community connecting. IAS in partnership with Helen Sanderson Associates have also developed several community connecting training courses. One of these recently ran in Wigan at the request of the "Fulfilling Lives" partnership board sub group.

IAS Services strongly believes that 'innovation is more likely to happen where there is an emphasis on decentralisation and autonomy'. Accordingly each district operates with considerable autonomy within corporately agreed policies, guidelines and a statement of purpose. Clarity of vision plus compelling beliefs have been central to our success. Quality monitoring has been developed with individuals, their families and interested external people (Ali Gardner from Manchester University and Helen Sanderson). By this careful attention we are able to see that we are meeting the promises made in the statement of purpose, as well as the policies and procedures.

Staff should feel valued

IAS services believe that for innovation to happen staff should feel valued and be encouraged to contribute to and influence the development of the service we provide. This nurtures shared ownership and responsibility and ensures that we all act together from a common sense of purpose. Some of the opportunities for staff to really get involved have been created through our S.D.F.'s (service development forums), the peer mentoring initiatives, training and development opportunities, involvement in recruitment and selection and team participation in the development of our statement of purpose. We believe that we better retain quality staff when they feel involved and appreciated. This has been reinforced by the development of our recognition and appreciation budgets. These enable us to reward good practice and going that extra mile.

Continuing the theme of involvement is the next major step in the development of IAS. This is the move to not for profit status, which we believe will increase the sense of ownership amongst staff, people we support and their families. It will be possible to begin this process once the present loan for the purchase of the company has been completed. The loan dates from the management buy out and will be repaid within the next year.

Positive images of people with disabilities

IAS launched it's 'Statement of Purpose' and a 'Framework of What's Important to Us' in May 2004 after all teams, people we support and relatives became engaged in a 12 month process of reflecting on what IAS stands for and what we value. We are immensely proud of the end product, but it was the process of making the time to reflect, debate and think about our beliefs and values that was so important. Relatives Forums and Self Advocate Forums have become established from groups that were formed for this piece of work and we now have a quarterly newsletter, 'Exciting Times', that communicates values through good stories and regularly provides positive images of people with disabilities. The quality work that has ensured we have explicit standards to measure ourselves against was another major off-shoot of this work. There were many other spin-offs.

We have recently become involved in providing management support to a number of Trust Circles who receive a direct payment or In Control funding. This fits in perfectly with our aim of exploring different ways of putting choice and control into the hands of people and/or their allies. We are also currently working with two authorities to develop individualised budgets with a view to the money flowing from the commissioner to the person rather than to ourselves, as the provider. If we are delivering the goods, then individuals will purchase their support needs from us.

© 2010 IAS Services
Registered Office: 171 Church Street, Eccles, Manchester. M30 0LU
Reg Company No: 3021418