Our Work
What we do
Independent Living Supports’ vision is to build a thriving, resilient, and empowered communities through a sense of belonging and purpose. Our unique holistic one-to-one approach remains the foundation of our work with clients.
Established in 2002 consists of two services youth (13-25 age group) and adults (25 plus age group). We have two offices – Dumfries and Stranraer. Referrals for both services come from a range of organisations including other charities.
ILS accept self-referrals through our youth service and can assist with some self-directed support (SDS) packages for young people too. Our adult service referrals come through two funded programmes – peer or our ‘My Great Start’ (Wheatley Foundation) if you are a new tenant. ILS can accept adult self-directed support (SDS) clients who have been assessed by the social services team.
Youth Programme
Our youth programme GoBeDo (Go interesting places, Be all you can be, DO fun things) is a successful blend of one-to-one support and group activities.
As part of the youth offering ILS organise a weekly parent and child group to help support young parents; this group is designed to help with a range of parenting skills as well as supporting the young parents with their challenges.
ILS youth keyworkers build trust and commitment with that young person enabling a managed approach to recovery e.g self- esteem, confidence and resilience building to reduce social isolation, reducing debt, managing relationships, education access and attainment worries, housing and shelter challenges. In short ILS can take very complex needs and tackle each issue over a period of time if required.
Adult Service
Our adult service – It’s All About You – main aim is to reduce burdens on NHS, social work, and benefits agencies by delivering our person centred ethos.
Advocating, building and sustaining life-long skills into a clients’ everyday life to help them self-manage to become independent and resilient is our goal.
As part of our adult services we provide group work to help adults who have progressed from the one-to-one support. Two adult groups are currently active include Bringing Independence to Everyone (BITE) with the main aim of this group being to prevent relapses of social isolation and maintain progress toward self-management. The second group is Beyond the Border which helps adults with borderline personality come together for support.
Peer-to-Peer Service
Due to the success of our approach across all services ILS have provided peer-to-peer programmes since 2021.
Led by Lesley McWilliam who has undertaken training and development programmes with the Scottish Recovery Network to deliver this initiative. Working in partnership with our clients has enabled them to volunteer for our service, or other services to use their lived experience in a positive way to help their community.
