Our Approach

Everything we do is tailor made for individuals, because we know that no two people are the same. Our aim is to make hopes and dreams a reality.

At Positive Futures, we believe everything is possible. We don’t look for reasons why something can’t be done. We find a reason why it can. This is why our services make a huge difference to the people and families we support.

We challenge outdated ways of thinking. We identify gaps in service provision. We act creatively. We work in partnership. Most of our established services first started in this way.

Helping people live the life they want

“The Life I Want” – empowering adults with a learning disability, acquired brain injury or autism to have choice and independence to live the life they want now and in the future.

A variety of person-centred tools are used throughout “The Life I Want” process to help us learn and understand what a “perfect week” looks like for each person. By thinking about what each person would like to do with their support hours, we can begin to assess what is achievable, and how we can ensure the person receives the right amount of support to enable them to achieve the life they want.

By empowering the people we support to make their own decisions, and by challenging our own thinking about how we can fulfil these wishes, the people we support can achieve greater choice and independence to live life as they choose.

Positive Futures’ “The Life I Want” process gives people power to transform their own lives

The story of 3 ladies who completed “Planning Live” shows how this approach gives people power to transform their own lives.

A pioneering project is helping people with a learning disability, acquired brain injury or autism to tailor their own support for a better life.

“The Life I Want” approach was introduced in Positive Futures in 2014.

It has helped to give three women supported by Lakeland Supported Living Service in Fermanagh greater control of their own lives.

Positive Futures’ Chief Executive, Agnes Lunny, said: “The key difference between this and any other kind of support is that it looks not just at what’s important for the person, but what’s important to them. What’s important for them might be, for example, making sure that they’re safe. But what’s important to them are the things that make life worth living. It might be as ambitious as a desire to visit New York, or it might be more modest, like wanting to go to church on Sunday.”

One of the three women involved in the pilot project in Fermanagh, Breege Corrigan, wanted to go to bingo. Now, she attends every week with a staff member she chose to support her. Eveline Elliott has an interest in gardening. Now, she’s involved in her own gardening project, again with a staff member of her choice. Davida Monaghan is looking for a placement as a volunteer and is being supported to do so.

All three women – who share a house – have been the key players in deciding what’s best for them.  
The process starts by bringing together a team including family members, friends, professionals and other relevant people to take part in what’s known as a Planning Live event, which takes place over two days. It uses a number of person–centred tools to decide what’s working or not working in a person’s life. It then establishes what a perfect week would look like from that person’s point of view. The final step is to hold a second event to use all the information gathered to provide a package of support that’s just enough to enable people to fulfil their wishes and lead more independent lives. By avoiding “over–supporting” someone, it hands over control to the individual in question.
By empowering the people we support to make their own decisions and by challenging our own thinking about how we can fulfil these wishes, the people we support can achieve greater choice and independence to live life as they choose.

Some examples of this include:

The three women involved being able to spend time in each other’s company without staff involvement.

Davida and Breege being able to use their existing staff support to enable them to go on a three–day break.

Positive Behaviour Support

Positive behaviour support is a holistic, evidence based, approach that helps reduce stress in people with a learning disability, acquired brain injury, or autism and their carers using tried and tested assessment and intervention packages.

It does so by establishing the causes of behaviour that challenges and addressing these.

We use this approach in delivering our own services within Positive Futures, where our behaviour support is coordinated through a steering group made up of senior operational managers, Service Managers, our Positive Behaviour Support team and external consultants. 

Positive behaviour support within Positive Futures includes training for staff and support and guidance on managing behaviours that challenge.

Our Services