Wales Alliance for Citizen Directed Support

The Council of the Wales Alliance for Citizen Directed Support is proposing a strong, collaborative, but simple  Alliance structure to take forward Citizen Directed Support through this difficult time.

This is the organisational structure we are building to support our Alliance so it can be effective for agencies and individuals interested in developing Citizen Directed Support in Wales.

If you want to help us to shape this please read the paper by following the link or you can read the summary below and leave us a comment on this page.

• Organising Alliance Member Agencies

Our working arrangements for Agencies and groups – a summary

In summary the paper covers 5 main areas:

1. Create an easy pathway for joining the Alliance through an On-line form which asks them

• To accept that they will be work in line with the CDS principles
• What the agency does to support people in Wales
• What the agency wants  from the Alliance to make it successful
• What the agency can offer in terms of time, enthusiasm, expertise, and resources to supporting the development of CDS across Wales.Once the Council has accepted their request to join, the information they have given is the published on their own page on  the WACDS website so that all Citizens and Agencies can have a sense of the agencies that are involved. Agencies can change the information that they have shared as their circumstances change.

• You can view the web tools that we are developing to support this by clicking Member Join up

2. Provide regular forum’s for Agency members to find opportunities for collaboration and sharing.

• We would hold a forum for member agencies every 2 months starting in March 2011
• This meeting would be held as an ‘Open Space’ which is a very collaborative way of meeting with agenda items that can be added on line.

• You can find our the dates of these Agency meetings by clicking on Agency Meeting Dates

3. A Shared project plan for the Alliance

• Agencies can contribute to a Project Plan for the Alliance that is overseen by the Council
• Members can either make contributions at the Alliance meetings or on-line through the Alliance website.

• You can view the web tools that we are developing to support this by clicking Shared Project Plan

4. Working Together through Support Requests

• Any member should be able to simply ask for, or offer help from, or to, the wider membership, they would be able to do this my making a ‘Support Request’.
• This could equally be a request for help, or an offer of support, for instance ‘Can anyone help us with easy read contracts for Personal Assistants?’ or ‘Does anyone need help with training with the use of multi-media within person centred working?’
• Support Requests could equally come from the Alliance Council such a ‘Can anyone help us manage or expenses system, or website, etc?
• Support requests would be easy to make through a form on the website, all the requests / offers would be shared with the responses made by agencies to them.
• Supporting both large and small agencies to get involved, as well as promoting innovation may take not only commitment and time but a little money. We are interested in whether Member agencies are asked to make recommended annual donation of £500 for agencies and a recommended donation of £50 per year from small service user representation groups. Given the interest of agencies expressed in the Alliance this could generate shared funds of about £20,000 per annum to promote collaborative work, the use of this money would be accountable to all members by a system of open accounting.

• You can view the web tools that we are developing to support this by clicking Working Together

5. The role of the Council

• The Council’s role would be to oversee these shared ways of working,
• They would arbitrate where necessary and suggest areas for collaboration where unexploited opportunities exist.
• They would also support members in working together to take forward the Alliance plan.

It would be great to get your views