Risk
Self-Directed Support has at its heart, the aim of empowering and enabling people. It has been recognised that organisations have often historically tended towards managing safety as a priority over managing peoples access to experiences that will allow them to develop. This has also been reflected in the types of environments that people have lived in and the myths that have prevailed around what keeps people safe, i.e. community is a dangerous place and people are safer away from it. We are moving on from this, but a lot of the fear can linger, we need confidence and the 'Risking a Real Life paper encourages asking the questions and working it out together.
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This paper sets out the case for looking at the language and approaches around risk enablement in the context of opportunity, (the opportunity to grow, live and develop), together with the implications for people where those opportunities are denied. It mixes guidance and resources with examples of practice which has both helped and hindered people with disabilities living real lives, so we can learn from it.