We are a small organisation; at the moment there are only two of us. We set up Community Glue to try and make sure new plans for 'self-directed support' help the whole community. You can find out more about us by clicking here. This is a list of the things we are doing at the moment, but we are always interested in new ideas.

People who use services, or care for people who do, should be at the centre of how services are developed. We hold a quarterly evening meeting on the first Wednesday of the month (with free, delicious food!) where anyone who has made use of health and social care services can come and talk about their experiences, and if they want us to, we will do what we can to help them come up with ways that services could be improved. Click here for more details.

From 2008 onwards adults entitled to publicly funded social care services have been able to purchase their own support directly – known as 'personal budgets'. In 2014, personal health budgets were widely introduced also for people with long term health conditions. We are interested in how the new systems might offer people more control and choice over the care and support they receive.  Our two major pieces of work around this theme so far have been: 

• Developing and running a 'peer support broker' course (more information here) (2011 -2013)

• Researching and publishing 'Personal Budgets: Where Next in Oxfordshire?' (2014)

Building on the recommendations in our report, and in a climate of more cuts to local services, we are currently researching ways that people can collaborate through 'peer support', for example:

• how to improve access to information on personal budgets by making use of the wealth of experience that other users of services have accumulated
• how to make best use of the money available to people by pooling small personal budgets to create micro-services

You can read our report's summary and recommendations here.

When people apply for their own budgets, the type of support they most commonly purchase is help from another person or people (often known as Care Assistants or Personal Assistants). Sometimes they are well supported, but more often they are left to cope alone with what can be a difficult as well as a rewarding job. We have developed a package of supports for care workers, whether they are self-employed, or employed by their clients or other organisations.

In these days of shrinking budgets, many charities and social enterprises can find that they are thinly stretched. At Community Glue we have more than 40 years' management experience between us, and we'd be happy to talk to other organisations about their needs. Examples of the kinds of things we've done include:

• Helping other community groups to register as companies or charities
• Facilitating a staff support group
• Preparing documentation and writing reports.
• Developing policies and procedures in consultation with staff and service users.
• Project managing new services during the 'start-up' phase.

You can contact us by clicking here.