Since the 1970s both society and the social care sector in general have witnessed and encouraged fundamental developments in the way services are provided to people with disabilities. The changes are connected to the values of equal rights to live everyone else with normal lives conditions.

Today, services for people with a disability are very different as they try to create the personal quality of life out from three important aspects: the exterior life conditions, the social relationships and the personal viewpoint of the person with a disabiltiy. These services are base don a close cooperation with the involvement of all stakeholders and of course woth the direct involvement of the person  with a disability and his/her family and friendship / support networks. They aim for social inclusion, and are designed around the needs of each individual. Disability specific services wish to work with and support mainstream services and make available their expertise tot hes mainstream actors.

As a Europe-wide network for service providers, EASPD stands for support, development and promotion of High Quality services for all persons with disablilties and their social networks and family.  These high quality services are focussed on full participation in society as fully respected citizens.  For this reason, services will need tob e person centred and community based. These services will start from the individual needs and desires of the involved person and his/her environment and they will be developed and evaluated  in close cooperation with the ‘user’. Providers, members of EASPD, are encouraged and supported to implement the principles of good governance, structural user and family involvement and quality assurance systems.

The ultimate aim of the disablity service providers sector is to support and empower people with a disablity to live a full, active and contributing role in their community, wether as employee, family member, friend, consumer or in other ways. Service providers aim to empower disable people and create awareness amongst other society members about the value and contribution each disabled person can make. Full participation and inclusion in the community, as respected individual is the overall aim of the service provider.

EASPD wishes to play a major role in helping this happen. It has developed a body of experience from several successful projects, including “Included in Society”, “Tolerance and Acceptance” and “Families In”.  Clear statements about de-institutionalisation were made at the Vienna hearing in May 2005

To underpin, support and facilitate the development of personalised support services and community building, EASPD launched in 2005 its STEPs framework, towards Person Centred Services and Community Based Settings (PCS & CBS). STEPS stands for:

1. Support and Advice from Members to Members

 

2. Tailor made training, frontline training in setting up, or changing services

 

3. Exchange and Promotion of good practices

 

4. A specific Study visit to Norway

STEPs is EASPD's framework through which we hope to give service providers across Europe the information, the training and the support needed to deal with the challenges ahead. We hope to facilitate the process of change and development necessary for future high quality services. The three pillars on which EASPD is built, - "'Innovation, Information and Impact"– provide this framework with a firm basis as we launch this multi-annual action plan.

As a Europe-wide network for service providers, EASPD stands for development and promotion of high quality services for all persons with disabilities and their social networks. These high quality services are focussed on full participation in society as fully respected citizens. For this reason, services will need to be person centred and community based. These services should start from the individual needs and desires of the involved person and his/her environment. They will be developed and evaluated in close cooperation with the ‘user'. Providers, members of EASPD, are encouraged and supported to implement the principles of good governance, structural user and family involvement and development of quality assurance systems.

The ultimate aim of the disability service providers sector is to support and empower people with a disability to live a full, active and contributing role in their community, whether as employee, family member, friend, consumer or in other ways. Service providers aim at empowered persons with a disability and create awareness amongst other society members about the value and contribution each person with a disability can make. Full participation and inclusion in the community, as a respected individual, is the overall aim of the service providers.

Funding of STEPs

The four-fold framework will be financed through:

1. Contibution of the members by making available their knowledge and expertise and by making available some working time of their experts
2. By linking seminars to project funding, to already approved projects
3. By the submission of new project proposals in wich parts of this framework will be integrated
4. EASPD will try to find funding from foundations and private sponsors and we will support members in finding additional resources in organising the seminars or events in relation to this framework.

Conclusion

Providers are nomads ... they folow the persons with a disalbility on his/her journey through life. Trough this road map EASPD hopes to contribute to the much-needed developments in the sector an calls on all other relevant organisations and stakeholders to contribute as wekk to this project and this process.

Luk Zelderloo, President EASPD 

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