This plan was prepared by the Co-ordinator with supervision and assistance from the

One Voice Management Group.

ONE VOICE BUSINESS PLANSEPTEMBER 2014

1ONE VOICE BUSINESS PLANSEPTEMBER 2014CONTENTS PAGE

Executive Summary 2

Background 3

Values, Aims and Objectives 4

Legal status & Membership 5

Management Processes 5

Organisational Chart 7

Achievements 8

One Voice’s current services 9

Planned outcomes of our work 10

Strategic Fit 16

Future Plans 19

Risk Analysis 20

Appendix

Equality user data 21

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Executive Summary

One Voice is a limited liability company with no share interest. It is managed by directors and a volunteer management group elected from and by Wolverhampton disabled citizens.The Management Group oversees the work of One Voice which is conducted by the Co-ordinator, and other project-specific staff, and volunteers.

One Voice’s unique selling point is that it is a disabled people’s organisation – it is staffed, managed and run by disabled citizens for disabled citizens, and it’s full members are all disabled people.

It is thus able to draw on a wide range of ideas and expertise from people who have insight into and experience of the issues of importance to disabled people as they seek to live equal and self-determined lives.

Over the last 5 years, we have been able to develop considerably as an organisation, both in terms of a robust set of policies, procedures and practices, and in terms of the projects and services we provide.

We have been able to do this by successfully applying for contracts and funding opportunities, in a wider area which has allowed us to increase our profile and client base along with our services.It has meant that we are now contracted to provide some services not just for disabled people.

We are recognised as disability experts both by our disabled service, and by service providers across the city, but in the last 2 years we have become known as providers of professional services for the wider community.

At the same time we have sought to maintain our distinctly disabled core, by developing and supporting work with other disabled people’s organisations across the Black Country.

We run our organisation along the lines of “nothing wasted” – we regard our contracts as not just an opportunity to provide services, but also an opportunity to train disabled unemployed people and other local people in how to run those services, so we are increasing our employability at the same time.

We plan to develop our services more fully over the coming years, subject to our ability to attract further funds and contracts. Our ability to do this is dependent on continued funding and contractsin our core areas, but funding is not the only risk we have to plan for.We have increased need of our services at a time of great change and uncertainty for disabled people as a result of benefits, care, housing and health changes taking place now and over the coming years.

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The Business Plan will be reviewed and renewed in September 2016 and presented to the One Voice AGM

BackgroundOver the last few decades, disabled people have been at the forefront of driving change andimprovements in legislation and policy to advance disabled people’s rights as equal citizens.The Disability Movement slogan “nothing about us without us” has gone from something shouted defiantly by disabled people chaining themselves to public buildings – to a mainstream starting point for looking at services provided for disabled people.The leadership of the Disability Movement has come from Disabled People’s Organisations – that is organisations run by and for disabled people - with enlightened support from statutory and public bodies.One Voice was set up in 1994 with support from councillors and officers at Wolverhampton City Council, in response to the desire of disabled citizens to have their own organisation which would give disabled people a say with the council and other service providers.Disabled people wrote the constitution, decided what the organisation would do, and elected a management group from amongst themselves.To begin with One Voice was a forum for disabled people’s views and the opportunity to have a say, but over time, disabled people increasingly wanted more information and support in order to live their daily lives as equal citizens. So the profile and reach of One Voice has expanded over time, and it has become a service provider in many areas for disabled people.One Voice’s services and support have been driven by the needs of our users and members, and we are able to explore gaps and barriers in support and provision for disabled citizens, and help them to be removed.We deliver tailored services to disabled individuals, partner organisations, and in recent years, increasingly we provide services and expertise to other citizens in need of advocacy and support.One Voice is run in line with the social model of disability - we believe that people like us have impairments, what disables us is an inaccessible environment or disabling attitudes.We are an organisation run by disabled people, offering help advice and support to other disabled people as well as offering information, training, consultation and

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partnership working to other organisations on issues to do with disabled citizen's lives.

The work of One Voice falls into 3 broad categories,o services to disabled individuals and others including

advocacy/representation, signposting, advice and information.o services for and with groups of disabled people and others, including

training, talks, access work etc

o Consultation services to and partnership working with other organisations. 

One Voice’s Values, Aims and Objectives

Values

One Voice is an inclusive organisation that operates under the social model of disability – we believe that although disabled people have a wide variety of differing impairments, what disables us, are environmental or attitudinal barriers

So One Voice’s person-to-person services can be used by any person who considers themselves a disabled person, irrespective of impairment. By ‘disabled people’ we mean people of all impairments or long-term conditions. This includes people with mental health support needs, people with learning difficulties, people with physical or sensory impairments, and people of all ages including people who experience disability through the effects of ageing.

We believe in self-determination for all disabled people, and believe that disabled people themselves, if properly empowered, are the best people to develop our polices, services, values and direction.

We work

to the Social Model

of

Disability :

“Disability is the experience of exclusion, discrimination and social oppression by people with impairments. It is caused by the way society is organised that takes little or no account of people who have impairments. Someone’s impairment or long-term condition would not lead to disability if mainstream society accommodated our different needs.”

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Aims

One Voice was set up to benefit disabled people living in the area, whatever their age, sex, gender identity, race, sexual orientation, political, religious, or other opinions or background, but in particular:i) to bring together disabled people as one voice, with the aim of extending

their rights and meeting their needs.ii) to provide information, advice, and representation, and to raise awareness

and campaign on issues concerned with disability.iii) to provide other practical services that may be required by disabled people.

Objectives

Our principle objective, as identified by our management group through Outcomes Planning, is:To reduce social exclusion of disabled people in the area and help disabled people to improve their lives by improving access to information, improved voice and influence, increased choices, increased rights/knowledge of rights, enable people to manage and maximise their finances.

Legal Status & membership

One Voice is limited liability company run by disabled people.

i Individual membership is open to the following people, in three categories: a) all self-defined disabled people aged 18 years or over, and living in the area, who will be Full Individual Voting Members

b) all people over 18 years of age without a self-defined disability, living in the area, who will be Associate Individual Non-Voting Members

c) all self-defined disabled people under 18 years of age and living in the area, who will be Individual Non-Voting Junior Members -These members will not have the right to vote at members' meetings, but they may elect 2 representatives to the Management Committee from amongst themselves, who will each have the right to vote as though they were full members.

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ii Associate Group Membership with no voting rights, will be open to any voluntary, public, or private body operating in the area, who support the interests of one voice.

Management Processes

We monitor our reach across equality strands through examining completed equality forms. When we have noted an under-representation of service users (eg older Asians, Deaf people) we have taken immediate reparatory action, by doing outreach work with under-represented groups.We monitor the effectiveness of our work via evaluation and our Comments, Complaints, and Complements form.We are able to respond to what our analysis shows us and improve the service, and take on ideas for development.Disabled Citizens who attend our AGM are able to stand for election to management group, which is elected afresh every year.Management group members oversee the general direction, contracts, finances and overall work of one voice.They take an active role in doing some of that work.The co-ordinator reports to management group, takes instruction from them, and collaborates with them on One Voice’s performance and development.The Co-ordinator is responsible for overseeing and providing One Voice services, research etc, facilitating sub-groups like the access group, acts as a supervisor for other staff, oversees projects, creating, co-ordinating and delivering training, supervises volunteers, and oversees advocacy recruitment.The advocacy co-ordinator supervisese advocates, and facilitates advocate meetings and advocacy users’ group, along with a management group rep.The WHACS co-ordinator oversees the Wolverhampton Health Advocacy Complaints Project

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Organisational Structure Chart

8

One Voice Achievements

One Voice has succeeded in providing a voice for disabled people in the city on a variety of issues.

We have successfully acted as a support, voice and facilitator for people with lots of different types of impairments, so that we are literally One Voice of disabled people.

We have provided volunteering opportunities for many disabled people who had not previously been involved in their communities. Our success in this area has been down to our collaborative approach and our flexibility and disability awareness.One Voice continues to take on disabled volunteers who are on disability benefits such as Employment Support Allowance and Personal Independence Payments. Many of these people have never worked, or not worked since their period of incapacity.

We have increased job opportunities for disabled people and others through our disability-friendly training, volunteering, and sessional work opportunities.

We have attracted funding from the Arts Council, Office of Disability Issues, and Awards for All. We also create income via our training and access audit services.

We have produced 2 substantial reports on “What disabled people want and need” by interviewing hundreds of disabled people, and using the subsequent report as a basis for working with partners to improve services.

We have helped thousands of disabled people to maximize their income, manage their money or secure their benefits.

We Enable service users to successfully achieve agreed outcomes through adopting a planned person-centred approach to service delivery based upon identified needs. We have helped people with a huge number of different issues, and provided a barrier free tailored service based around needs of individual/group.

We have raised the profile of disability issues across the city

We have produced a wide variety of relevant, up-to-date, and accessible information in print and via our website that is widely downloaded and used, both inside and outside Wolverhampton and the UK (last year over 500 directories were downloaded)

We have successfully kept disabled people and other local citizens informed of changes and policies that may impact upon their lives, and provided opportunities for them to have a say in this.

9We have a very successful access group/network that ensures disabled people have a say into changes that affect their lives. In partnership with the Council they have a say on every public building or refurbishment project in the city, and public transport projects.

We have created and developed anAdvocacy Service in partnership with Adult Services in the City Council, which is a leader in the field and used as a model for good practice in other parts of the country.

We work closely with all partner agencies stakeholders and service users to develop and sustain a comprehensive approach to service delivery which maximises the potential of service users

One Voice’s Current Services & ProjectsPresently we provide services to disabled individuals and groups including advocacy, representation, advice and information, training, involvement, networking, consultation, information services, training services to and partnership working with other organisations.

Under contract we have developed and sustained a high quality advocacy service for disabled people.

Under contract we set up and developed the WHACS advocacy project providing advocacy support for people who want to make a complaint regarding their treatment from a health service in Wolverhampton. In its first year, this project exceeded targets and expectations and delivered the service to over three times as many clients as previous iterations of the service have achieved.

We set up a 1 year youth advocacy project, bringing advocacy services, training, and employment opportunities to young disabled people.

Our planned outcomes over a year are as follows:

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OutcomesPerformance

Indicators Milestones

Disabled people feel better about their

lives

* people getting a one voice service

*disabled people know about one voice’s one-to-one services and how to access them

people finish advocacy process

* people use the service or are referred to our advocacy service

* feedback forms user data is scanned at 6 months to look for any lack of access

Disabled people get appropriate support

to manage their issue

feedback forms *disabled people are able to access our services

*disabled people evaluate the service as a positive/useful experience

Increased participation

*Input into consultation process

*disabled people are informed about consultation projects and building projects

*Attendance at meetings

*disabled people become involved in these projects

Disabled people increase their

knowledge of benefits

Information given out *information is researched, updated and prepared for publication

*information is published in appropriate formats

*disabled people are told about this information

*Disabled people access the information

Increased knowledge of legal rights and

choices

*Information given out *As Above, plus

*clients supported in *Training and workshops on legal

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Wolverhampton City Strategic Fit

One Voice’s work, guided and requested by disabled citizens, members and service users, fits into the City Council Strategy in a number of ways.

We encourage disabled people to be involved in a wide range of ways, including accessible voting, replying to consultation documents, and facilitating meeting where they have a say on a building project.

Partnership work and community cohesion

We work with groups from all of Wolverhampton’s communities via various equality and diversity groups and bodies, working in partnership on various issues, and in the way we run our service. Almost everything we do that is not a person-to-person service, improves community cohesion as a by-product, as we always approach and are approached by other community-of-interest organisations for current and new projects. So as well as our services being used by a good cross-section of the population, our projects all promote partnership with other organisations and joint working.We also advertise other interest groups’ events via newsletters, websites and blogs, and even give a discreet page or webpage over to an organisation as required to further their aims.

We promote an inclusive approach to all we do.

Supporting disabled people to live independently

Almost all of what we do has the overarching aim of supporting disabled people in Wolverhampton to live independently – via advocacy and counselling services, financial advice and support, housing advice and support, and information in a wide variety of formats on a wide variety of issues that promote disabled people’s independence and self-determination.

We have overseen/financed the training of staff/volunteers in benefits and advocacy.

We have a holistic approach with volunteers, in that we work in collaboration with them to help them to improve their skills, knowledge and employability, at the same time that they are helping One Voice to meet its targets. So for example, we will provide developmental targeted training for our volunteers (eg teaching someone how to build an accessible website), seek funding for them to do job-related training (like trainers award, benefits training, advocacy level2), or provide our own in-house training to help them develop.

We also provide tailored support in applying for jobs, mock interviews, etc to all of our volunteers and sessional workers – in this way, some have gone on to full time education or part/full time employment.

We also have a very flexible attitude to volunteering, which helps many disabled people to start ofn the long road of being ready for work – some of our volunteers come for a few weeks, then have a health/mental health crisis, but we keep in contact with them as mentors/support, so that they are able to return to us at a later date if they want to.

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We provide back-up support for all our staff/volunteers who undergo training – this may be in the form of a study group, learning support, signer, note-taker etc, which is why no one has failed any of the course they attended on behalf of one voice.

The disability Movement has identified 7 needs of independent living for disabled people:Information, Peer Support, Housing, Equipment, Personal Assistants, and Access.This approach has been endorsed by Governments (eg in the Life Chances for Disabled People report).As a disabled people’s organisation, we fulfil most of these needs, and some of them are fundamental to what we do.We provide a wide varied, and accessible range of information, that helps disabled people to know ther rights, where they can get help etc, and thus have some independence and control of their lives. Our Directory has had a fundamental impact in this area – we have over the last 2 years distributed 500 print copies, 3 large print copies, 11 audio copies, and over 600 downloaded copies.Our advocacy service is highlty successful, and represents one of the acknowldeged 7 needs of independent living for disabled people (peer support). How we differ from other advocacy providers is that we have produced a service model, that not only provides advocacy, but trains and supports disabled unemployed people to become sessionally paid advocates, thereby bothe providing a peer advocacy service and an opportunity for employment and work experience for disabled citizens.We also provide back-up support for all our staff/volunteers who undergo training – this may be in the form of a study group, learning support, signer, note-taker etc, which is why no one has failed any of the course they attended on behalf of one voice.

We work with Wolverhampton Homes, Heantun and other local housing providers on improving the accessibility of their services, policies and housing stock.

We provide advice, guidance and assessment on accessible equipment, as well as information about the equipment services run by the council and health authority.We signpost people toi support for hiring and managing personal assistants via the direct payment scheme.

We do a lot of access work with various partners on buildings, services and refurbishments across the city. We are first port of call by the City Council for consultation on access issues, as required by the Disabled Access Statements legislation, and can call upon a wide number of disabled people with expertise in accessible design and service provision.

A lot of our client based work and workshops is interventionist in that it helps to prevent a greater crisis later on – we have helped many disabled people with debt, money management, income maximisation, and benefits help in order to ensure they don’t end up in court or have their home repossessed.

Health & Wellbeing

We did some research on disabled people, their use of gyms and other facilities and their knowledge of healthy lifestyles. This revealed a gap in knowledge and funding so we got funding to run days for disabled people at gyms, which included information on healthy eating – as a result disabled people

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have joined gyms. We promote exercise activities, do our own chairobics sessions at the beginning of each general meeting, and provide information and promotion of healthy living and exercise.

Safety

We work with Police Officers on Wolverhampton related safety issues and innovations, and we are part of a West Midlands-wide disability hate crime group.Hate crimes against disabled people are either increasing or more reported so we are doing support work with disabled individuals on this.While hate crime may be increasing, crime across the city has been decreasing, and that is not always the public perception, so we join with other agencies in regularly promoting (via our website) falls in crime statistics as they are relayed to us.

We Support many disabled people to be active within their communities, either by supporting them to be part of meetings or consultations, or getting them involved in our access or transport groups.We have done this most recently via the Council Budget consult, consultation on the metro transport changes, city centre refurbishments and traffic changes, promoting events for and by local people, and promotinginvolvement with other groups and organisations across the city.We also advertise other interest groups’ events, promote an inclusive approach to all we do via our website events section, and our twitter and facebook accounts.

Focused Provision

Our services are mainly provided for disabled citizens.Our services continue to be used by people with: Mental health issues (direct support information and representation services) Child Poverty (child DLA benefits) Addiction support (via signposting and some advocacy and information) Young people; Domestic violence (through access work and advocacy work with the HAVEN) Employment and training for work Education and learning; (by providing training, signposting training and education, increasing the amount of information available on barriers to disabled people etc) Health and Wellbeing (by promoting health and wellbeing, producing accessible exercises, running health & wellbeing events) Carer support (signposting, and making our information, advice and training open tocarers))

Future PlansWe hope to maintain our current levels of service, or enhance them as required by our users, contracts and funders.

We also want to develop further some of our services, but this is reliant on attracting future funding.

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All of our attempts at developing and extending the work of One Voice are based upon a need or gap being identified by One Voice, followed by research and user and member consultation.

Every time we look at doing something new or different, we ensure that we do an Equality Analysis, which as well as looking at the equality impact, also focuses on the likely effects on existing services and users.

In this way we ensure that any proposed developments are user led and approved.

At present our advocacy service is funded by Adult Care Services for people with long term impairments, so this is our client base. In the last year we have been taking referrals and providing a service for learning disable people and mental health service users. We would like to get further funding or contracts in this area, to deliver the service for other Wolverhampton citizens.

We think we are well placed to do such work because we have a demonstrable experience of delivering a high quality, professional advocacy service that also operates as a training and paid work opportunity for unemployed disabled people.

We have satisfactorily trained people with a wide range of impairments to become professional level II qualified advocates. We have trained as advocates peoplewho come from a care background, transgendered advocates, advocates with learning disabilities, wheelchair users, people with depression and a wide range of other people – we believe any publically funded service should look like the public it serves and ours looks like Wolverhampton in all its wonderful variety.

We want to continue bringing disabled people and their friends and family together for social activities that also improve their lives – like the carnival, our health and fitness programme, and International Day of Disabled People, and we are working with the Arts Council on making a successful funding bid in this area.

We continue to have our Directory reprinted every 2 years, and it is available online, on audio-cd, cd-rom and in print. We fulfill requests for around a thousand a year.

Risk Analysis

Our ability to continue or develop our services is subject to several potential threats, including, but not limited to funding.

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Our principal funding issues are that we are reliant on the contracts we presently hold to keep up the level of service we currently provide.

While we are capable of charging for services in some areas – such as training and access audits; in times of recession, equality related services are often seen as an optional extra that can be cut from a budget, so our ability to generate an income is limited, and cannot be managed at a sustainable level at present.

We do not charge for our services to disabled people, for the very good reason that disabled people are poorer and more likely to be unemployed than their non-disabled counterparts.

The funding we get from other projects is costed to go into the provision of the project itself. We look to include an admin fee in costings in order to protect us against running cost increases and budget cuts.

The present direction of the Government may be identified as a threat in that if disabled people who are to undertake work-related activity have their volunteering establishments chosen by the DWP, then the number of volunteers we can rely on may be severely curtailed.

We also have an ongoing risk that we have learnt to deal with, that is a natural result of an organisation that is run by and for disabled people – disabled people have more difficulties in an inaccessible world than non-disabled people – this may be because of physical or attitudinal barriers, or it may be because of impairment related illness, but it means we have to have a flexible policy on staff and volunteers – it is why we have an assistant treasurer. It is why it sometimes takes a lot of volunteers and a lot of supervision to produce a piece of work. But we believe this can also be regarded as an opportunity – to give disabled people a very flexible opportunity to drop in and out of volunteering and training as their condition dictates, and to improve our flexibility as an organisation, while improving their life-chances.

Appendix

Service User Equality Data – core servicesThis is the equality data for service users who use the projects

We encourage each service user that we meet face-to-face to fill in our user equality data forms. We also include some equality data on our training evaluation forms.

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The breakdown of service users who completed forms is below.

Sex/Gender Identity of users

male

female

trans

Sex / Gender Identity

Male

Female

Trans

Total

Ethnic Group of service users who returned forms:

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Asian British Asian Other

Black British Black African

Black Caribbean White British

White Other Other

Sexual Orientation of face-to-face service users who returned the form:

gay/lesbian 7

Bisexual 4

Heterosexual/straig 49

Prefer not to say/blank 14

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Impairment

Of those users that completed and returned forms, stated one or more impairments,34did not state a specific impairment, 10 stated they were not disabled or left the form blank.

Amputee1%

Arthritis/Rheumatoid6%

ADHD1%

autism spectrum

3%

cancer2%

diabetes1%

"disability"24%

Epliepsy2%

hand/arm impairment

3%Hearing

Impairment2%Heart/lung Problems

4%HIV1%

Learning Disability6%

ME/Fi-bromyalgia

3%

medical conditions

8%

Mental Health10%

Mobility13%

none/blank7%

sickle cell3%

Impairment

impairment related requests/adjustments

Before we provide a face-to-face service for our users we ask them what reasonable adjustments they require in order to use the service. We have always been able to meet all of these adjustments, as we design all our services to be flexible and accessible to avoid disabling barriers.

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approriate seatingcommunity venueeasy to understandeasyreadexplain to my family memberhome visitinformation by emaillarge print/audiomore timeno perfumeoutsiderepeated appointmentsrepetitionsit near doorsupportspace to move aroundunderstand my conditiontime of day appointmentswrite things downspeak clearly

Age Range

Under 18 19-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61-65 65+0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

Age Range of service users who returned forms

19

Marital status/family status:

married single civil partnership living w/family prefer not to say0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35