Improving lives through innovation

Discover how Hampshire County Council’s forward-thinking approach is helping to adapt and improve services.

Our job is to make sure that Hampshire is safer and more secure for all, that it continues to be a great place to live, and that we help to maximise the wellbeing of our residents.

We strive to offer good value for money in the services we deliver. However, as more people need our services, our challenge is to adapt and innovate so we can continue to meet your needs with high quality, sustainable and increasingly efficient services. The following three case studies are examples of how we’ve risen to this challenge, and how our pioneering schemes are helping to make a real difference to people’s lives.

Shared Lives - a family-based environment for vulnerable adults

We pioneered Shared Lives, previously known as Adult Placement, back in 1979 and it’s now one of the largest schemes of its kind in the country. Shared Lives is for adults with learning or physical disabilities, mental health or other needs, who are unable to live alone. Rather than living in residential care homes, these adults can live in a household, effectively becoming part of someone’s family.

Steve Foley is 52 and has a learning disability. After his parents died, he lived in residential care for 12 years before meeting Shared Lives carer Karen Fricker and her family — all of whom share Steve’s passion for Southampton Football Club.

Karen had worked for many years with people with learning disabilities. When she left full-time work to concentrate on family life, she and her husband decided to look into the Shared Lives scheme. After discussing it with their sons, they decided to go ahead and were introduced to Steve.

Steve has been living with them for just over a year now. “He fitted in right from the beginning,” says Karen, whose husband and son now take Steve to Saints’ games every fortnight — a dream come true for Steve.

Hampshire’s Shared Lives scheme provides help to 244 people and is being used as a model of best practice for other authorities. For more information please visit www.hants.gov.uk/sharedlives.

Our pledge to children in care - helping children to achieve their full potential

We look after over 1,000 children in care. As their ‘corporate parents’ we take our responsibility very seriously and care about their future. Just like other parents, we don’t always get everything right, and we are constantly looking at ways to improve. To help us do that, we asked members of the Care Council, made up of children in care, what really matters to them. As a result we have worked together to develop a ‘Pledge’ that aims to address the issues children in care have highlighted.

One thing that would help is access to things that young people who live with their own families might well take for granted — like access to a computer. Daisy Amachree, 17, has been in foster care since she was  six months old. Until recently, she had to travel to a relative’s house to do her homework, but now she has her own laptop. “It has helped me so much,” says Daisy, who is about to begin studying at Havant College.

Hampshire County Council recognises how vital computer access is for young people to aid learning and development, and is currently helping 820 young people who, like Daisy, are in foster care, by providing laptops and internet access. As well as learning crucial IT skills, the ‘Get online’ project will help them to feel more included and to achieve their full potential in education and future employment.

The Bridge Project - partnership working at its best

One of our priorities is to create safer communities and reduce antisocial behaviour. However, we cannot do this on our own and need to work closely with partners in order to achieve this. A great example is the Bridge Project, which saw Hampshire Police successfully linking up with Bridgemary College in Gosport.

When Hampshire Police carried out a survey of 1,800 homes in Bridgemary, residents felt crime rates were high and they had a poor perception of the police. As a result, the local Safer Neighbourhoods team, made up of police officers, special constables, police community support officers and volunteers, reformed into ‘The Bridge Team’ and began forging closer links with the community.  

A key focus for the team was Bridgemary College, which, in 2005, welcomed the offer of a school-based police officer. Cheryl Heron, head teacher at the time, said: “We thought it was a brilliant idea and it has proved to be a great success.” Soon crime and disorder in the area started to fall and people’s perception of the police improved.

The project continues to evolve and PC Neil Thorne, who has taken over as the Safer Schools Partnership Officer at the College, explains: “I’m here to help young people deal with issues ranging from drugs and alcohol to safe use of digital media. I want to build on the great work and take it into new areas.”