What is Supported Living?
Supported living is an alternative to residential care in providing support and accommodation to people who are assessed as eligible for services under Fairer Access to Care.
The difference is that in supported living, the housing provider and support provider are separate, and the service user has a licence or tenancy.
This gives the service user more rights, and if the support package is not meeting the service user’s needs, the service provider can be changed, rather than the service user having to move home.
Support can be commissioned from a few hours a week, up to 24 hours a day, depending on the assessed needs of the service user.
A worker from the Learning Disabilities Team would complete an assessment to determine the levels of support needed, and whether supported living would be an appropriate way of meeting the service user’s needs.
There are now over 150 people with learning disabilities living in supported living all over the city, and workers on the Learning Disabilities Team can commission from six different service providers, following a recent tendering process.
There are also several different models of supported living, such as people living in shared houses, having their own flats within cluster projects and also living in individual tenancies in the community.
