Gloucestershire User Led HUB
With funding from the Dept of Health, Gloucestershire Lifestyles has linked with Gloucestershire Older Persons Association (GOPA), Gloucestershire Deaf Association and Carers Gloucestershire to form the county's first 'user-led-organisation' (ULO) hub. The new Consortium is called Gloucestershire Choice Network and provide a range of services including:
- Information & Advice
- Advocacy with peer support
- Support in using individual budgets
- Recruitment & Employment of Personal Assistants
- Disability Equality Training
- Consumer Audits of local services & support the implementation of the disability equality duty by public sector organisations in the locality
Each organisation has signed up to a set of standards that ensure that they are truly User Led at each level of their organisation with 75% of their trustees are from their membership.
The aim of Gloucestershire Choice Network is to give a voice to people who access social services so that they have a greater say in the way these services evolve and are delivered.
This is not a merger and the four organisations will remain entirely separate organisations. But for the benefit of the people they support and where their interests overlap, they will work together to make people's lives better.