Enabling Individuals to ​Secure their Good Life

We demonstrate how to deliver Good Lives by playing a role ​as independent, expert commissioner of personalised support.

Much of our current work is supporting those with complex and challenging reputations who are ​being held in restrictive and controlling environments (psychiatric units etc) to move back to living ​in the community with personalised support and a sense of purpose enabling a good life.


When invited to work with individuals our approach is to:

> Produce a Good Life Plan: we spend time with the person, their families and those who really ​know them to shape an aspirational plan for that individual’s good life. The plan identifies what ​a Good Life for the person would look like and describes what is needed in terms of support, ​housing and transition to get there.


> Draw in clinical expertise to create a low-arousal plan: the stress and trauma that people with ​challenging reputations are living with has to be attended to. This must start with an ​understanding of the transactional nature of stress (how our behaviour influences the ​behaviour of others). We work with our partners at Studio 3 who are specialists in low arousal ​techniques to shape support plans that are not about controlling behaviours, but creating a ​behavioural environment where the person can flourish.


> Co-create a commissioning plan: we describe and cost out a personally designed housing and ​support arrangement that will enable the Good Life to be provided. We then proactively ​identify providers who can work with us to deliver our plan, rather than relying on Approved ​Provider lists. We focus on establishing small teams of higher quality staff – well-paid, well-​trained, well-led.


> Train and coach Providers to deliver a good life: having identified a suitable provider, we ​invest in building the problem-solving and creative thinking of the team so they can make the ​necessary positive community links, and be confident sticking to the low-arousal plan.


> Implement the plan: whilst the on-going commissioning of the support plan is held by the ​funding authority, we oversee the transition to the new approach and provide on-going ​training and coaching through the initial months, equipping teams to anticipate and respond ​positively to turbulence.

Our input will vary depending on the numbers of people we are working with and their specific ​circumstances. As a guide, our approach typically involves 20-25 days of our and our clinical ​partners time.


The on-going costs for the support plan remain the responsibility of the funding authority. Typically ​we assist organisations to deliver better outcomes for the people they support with less money and ​more ‘community’.


If you are a commissioner looking for expertise in designing and establishing an individual support ​plan or a family experiencing a system that is not providing a Good Life to someone you love, ​contact us to see how we can support you.


Pushing for

System Change

We want statutory systems to learn from our decades of ​experience and refocus away from deficit-based, service-led ​responses that are denying people their Good Life.

We know from decades of work in, beside and against statutory bodies that current systems are not ​delivering a Good Life for too many people. We are pushing for radical change which to us involves ​putting the local, the community and relationships back into the way we support people.


Our partners at Vanguard have shown there is compelling evidence that local authority and health ​systems need to recalibrate to:


• Listen to the people

• Be local (not a remote digital system)

• Help citizens to help themselves

• Attend to purpose

• Focus on value not cost.


At LivesthroughFriends we challenge the system wherever we see it failing citizens. Our ​independence and experience of working in a different way enables us to demonstrate how ​established practice and processes too often get in the way of securing a good life for people.


We seek to assist those statutory bodies that recognise the need to change and want to take steps ​to refocus in the right way. We provide insight, training and consultancy to demonstrate better ​ways of working.


Our involvement may begin with specific work with individuals (see above) that challenge the ​system. We make it a condition of our involvement that one or more professionals be nominated to ​work with us, allocated appropriate time, and supported to acquire the additional knowledge, skills ​and competences inherent in our approach. In this way we hope commissioners will learn and build ​robust in-house capacity to undertake more effective work with subsequent people.


We can also work with statutory bodies, drawing in our partners at Vanguard where appropriate, on ​wider system change thinking and action.


If you are part of the system and you know it is time to change, contact us to discuss how we can ​help.


Training and Coaching on ​delivering a Good Life


Equipping Providers and families with practical knowledge of ​strengths-based practice, building community networks and ​low-arousal techniques & alternatives to restraint.

Enabling those with complex reputations to enjoy a Good Life requires creative leadership and a ​deep commitment to achieving inclusion in community life.

We need service providers who: Take responsibility for building a sense of place and real ​relationships with the local neighbourhood. Adopt a problem-solving and creative thinking ​approach. Have the skills and competence to give people their Good Life, rather than focussing on ​how to control and contain behaviour.


Across the LivesthroughFriends team and our partners we provide a range of effective training and ​coaching opportunities that develop those in Provider organisations so they can enable those they ​support to achieve their Good Life.


Our training suite includes:

1. Introductions to Strengths-Based Practice

2. Building Relationships and Community Networks, including links to our partners at the PLAN ​Institute

3. Inclusion / Participation – what does it really mean, sharing ourselves

4. Clinical – low arousal practice and management – to ensure that when people are getting their ​chance to move into their community the institutional culture they have experienced does not ​follow them.


Contact us if you are looking for training and coaching to create a positive culture of support built ​around assets, gifts and community connections.