About ILS
Independent Living Support (ILS) is unique to Dumfries and Galloway.
Providing outreach services to vulnerable people since 2002, receiving charitable status in 2006, a mixture of holistic practical and emotional one-to-one support and educational, cultural, social and or physical group activities.
The service is provided to vulnerable people, 16 years and over, in their home or the community to address need, encourage self management and support resilience.
Our offices are based on George Street Meuse in Dumfries, Hanover Street in Stranraer and we have use of Lincluden Community Centre for group activities.
We try to be as flexible as possible so ring the doorbell or knock the office door if you’re passing; if we don’t answer we are out on business. See our contact details page for how to get in touch with us.
Over the last twenty years Independent Living Support (ILS) has provided long and short-term services in response to the people we serve. Historically, ILS is one of the first services to address fuel poverty and housing support. For seven years ILS delivered a highly successful housing support service on behalf of Dumfries & Galloway Council.
Our staff are very experienced in a variety of health and social care settings; we specialise in some very challenging mental health issues such as addiction, lived trauma, youth and adult lived care experience, supporting people through significant social isolation and confidence challenges affecting their ability to find work or go onto further education. We pride ourselves on offering meaningful, life changing support to encourage people to live as independently as possible, and moving on them on to become empowered to move their lives forward.
Our current services are:
- GoBeDo youth service – consistently funded by The Holywood Trust and The Robertson Trust this successful service blends holistic one-to-one support and bi-monthly group work activities for people aged 16 to 25 years.
- It’s All About You! – emerged from our specific housing support services and blends one-to-one adult outreach support and group activities. Our experiences in housing support and our founding principles of addressing primary needs led us to encourage life-long skills, develop self-effectiveness, self management, navigation and advocacy for individuals to live independently from complex and overburdened NHS, Social Work, care and benefits systems.
- ILS facilitate Beyond the Border which is aimed at supporting those with Emotionally Unstable personality also know as Borderline Personality Disorder.
- Peer Support – since 2021 we have introduced a peer support ethos into ILS. We facilitate a range of peer support groups to allow people with similar circumstances to meet, share experiences and develop friendships in a safe environment. We also provide “Peer-to-Peer training.” A twelve week programme for people with lived trauma who would like to use those experiences to help support others. The training is provided in partnership with the Scottish Recovery Network and ‘We Are With You’! Many of our graduates have moved onto volunteering, employment and further education opportunities.
On our referrals page you will find a referral form and we will publish whether our services are open for referrals. We encourage people to refer themselves, please give us as much information as you can on the referral form.
We are registered with the Care Inspectorate our most recent report can be accessed from:
The Care Inspectorate
Compass House
11 Riverside Drive
Dundee
DD1 4NY
Tel: 0345 600 9527
