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About Us
SharedLivesPlus is the UK network for family-based and small-scale ways of supporting adults.
Our members are Shared Lives carers and workers, Homeshare programmes and micro-enterprises.
Shared Lives used to be known as Adult Placement.
Our members are individual Shared Lives carers, Shared Lives schemes, Homeshare
providers and micro-enterprises. They use different approaches to enable people
to achieve goals such as:
- being in control of their services and their lives.
- pursuing ordinary lives within their chosen families and relationships.
- being valued by their communities and feeling like they belong.
SharedLivesPlus' members deliver or coordinate services which:
- are built around individuals, their strengths and potential;
- promote equality and value diversity;
- are safe but support people to take risks in pursuit of their goals;
- are cost-effective, with consistently better outcomes than alternatives.
SharedLivesPlus works with its members to:
- provide resources, training, insurance and one-to-one support;
- enable members to talk to, support and learn from each other;
- ensure that members can act as a network to influence national and local decision makers and the development of a more personalised social care system;
- raise awareness of the value of members’ work;
- commission research and strengthen the evidence base for our work.
Community Catalysts
SharedLivesPlus has established a social enterprise, Community Catalysts, which is bringing
their values and messages to new audiences and taking forward its aim to enable
people wherever they live to have real choice of high quality local individualised
support. Community Catalysts works across the UK through local partners to support
local enterprise. A major focus of its work currently is with local authorities
and health trusts keen to create an environment within which micro entrepreneurs
can flourish but its skills and knowledge are also being used by a range of other
organisations including regional and national providers interested in unlocking
the potential of staff teams and of the people that they support and Shared Lives
Schemes exploring expansion and development opportunities.
Through Community Catalysts, we can offer a consultancy service for members or
outside organisations that are looking for more in depth advice and help.
Our History
NAAPS (originally the National Association of Adult Placement Schemes) was launched
on 30 June 1992 as the umbrella body for adult placement, now known as Shared
Lives.
As the years progressed adult placement became increasingly tightly defined and
services that did not quite fit the adult placement definition moved across to
become associate members of NAAPS. The number of associate members stood at nearly
700 in 2003 but the following years saw a steady decline in membership as the
barriers created by regulation and bureaucracy saw many close down. NAAPS appointed
its first CEO in June 2004.
In 2007 adult placement members agreed to extend full membership rights to the
whole range of very small community based services that share adult placement
values and ethos. There are currently over 150 Small Community Service members.
In February 2008 after wide consultation, the membership decided that the words
‘adult placement’ should be replaced with the term ‘Shared Lives’, a term which
indicated the mutuality of the arrangements.
NAAPS members also agreed to extend full membership rights to Homeshare Association
members.
We now have 129 Shared Lives scheme members and over 3,500 Shared Lives carer
members – a number which increases every year. We are also committed to developing
our membership offer to small community services and Homeshare members. These
different kinds of service take different approaches to achieving the goals and
values which are at the heart of our work.
In October 2011 NAAPS was renamed SharedLivesPlus.