Small Supports

Small supports organisations have a lot in common; here are nine key characteristics they share.

1. From the first steps the person (and their chosen family and friends) has as much control as possible and there is a commitment to this control growing.
2. The starting point to developing great support is the person’s aspirations about where they want to live and the life they want to have; conversation about support then follows from this. Compromising on control and aspirations is when things start to go wrong.
3. Supporters (staff) are recruited by and around the individual. They don’t work across services. Staff are not a substitute for friends, community peers, co-workers and neighbours.
4. People choose where they live and who, if anyone, they live with. People are the tenant or owner of their own home or perhaps live with family. There is a clear separation of housing and support.
5. Funding is sustainable and is designed and used around the individual.
6. Small supports organisations stay with people. Change and challenges are expected so they don’t withdraw support or ‘sell’ services on.
7. In their work, leadership, recruitment and actions, small supports organisations are rooted in their local community.
8. The organisations stay relatively small. Knowing each person well means not growing by more than three to five people a year and finding a natural size where people are known and valued, and the organisation is financially sustainable.
9. Small supports organisations are developed around these practices. Taking some of these practices and making them aspirations within large, segregated services will not deliver the desired outcomes.

'Never giving up on anyone!' (Talking to the workforce), Helen Bown Report

'A Hole in My Bucket' (The economic impact of local investment), Mike Richardson Report

'Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today' (People with lived experience speak)
Sam Smith Webinar slides

• Cost & Benefits of Small Supports Organisations in England
• Building the Right Small Supports, Evaluation Report 2021
• Small Supports in Time of Crisis: This podcast series explore how individually designed and led, community-based support worked to protect both people's health and human rights during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• A Paper to Challenge and Inform Transforming Care Partnerships: This paper thinks about people with learning disabilities and/or autism who are living in secure settings (hospitals or Assessment and Treatment Units).
• Risky Business: the Cost of Human Life: In this blog, Sam Smith from C-Change writes about how the pandemic exposed the hidden cost of a system that has failed to take account of human worth.
• After the Storm: Hope in Adversity: A blog by Sam Smith about how COVID-19 shone a spotlight on issues that were known to exist but were not given prominent national focus.
• Bending the Arc: A blog by Sam Smith to suggest possible ways to navigate through the complexity of the challenges faced by social care.
• Introduction to the Small Supports programme June 2023
• Community Living Magazine (July 2023), Bill Love reports on a unity of Small Supports providers.