Supporting independent living for disabled people

Over the last 15 years, both the demand for and suitability of residential care facilities for disabled people has been decreasing steadily, as Government policy has undergone a gradual shift towards enabling disabled people to live independently in the community. Against this background, the Papworth Trust identified the need for innovative ways to provide services for disabled people wishing to lead independent lives. The Foundations for Living (FfL) initiative is the Trust's response to this need. In October 2005, the Papworth Trust commissioned RAND Europe to support an evaluation strategy that would assess the successes and challenges of the FfL initiative, lead to strengthened accountability arrangements, and provide lessons that could then be applied to other services run by both the Papworth Trust and other providers elsewhere in the UK and beyond (Stages 1 and 2 of the evaluation). This report sets out the findings of Stage 3 of the evaluation which has focused on evaluating the impact of FfL, and on examining interventions run by other organisations which are comparable to FfL (or to elements of it) in order to draw good practice lessons that are transferable both to FfL and the Papworth Trust, and to the wider community of organisations working on disability issues and social care.