Name of practice: The Move on Project 

Organisation: Milestones Trust

Country: Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset, United Kingdom

Funding: The Move on Project is funded by local authorities and through housing benefit. The people they support contribute towards service charges to promote skills in budgeting for and maintaining a tenancy, which also encourages a sense of belonging and responsibility.

Description of organisation:  

Milestones Trust is a social care charity that supports over 450 adults with learning disabilities, mental health needs, and complex behavioural needs to live to their full potential.

Milestones Trust offer a range of services across Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset, helping those we work with to live more creative, more meaningful and richer lives. From supported living to residential care, and from day opportunities to short breaks, their experience, expertise and person-centred approach ensure they are ideally placed to deliver positive outcomes for the people they support.

All of their registered services are rated as Good or Outstanding by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Description of practice:

The "Move on Project" is a 24-hour mental health-supported living Recovery Service that aims to provide an opportunity for individuals with enduring and complex mental health conditions to engage in a two-year programme of community-based rehabilitation, offering a person-centred approach to recovery. With a set of shared core values and goals, we work in collaboration with not only the people we support, but also their families, advocates, and other healthcare professionals, to achieve the best possible outcomes.

The "Move on Project" is clustered with a Care Quality Commission (CQC) registered residential service within the same area, so that people we support can move between services to offer a recovery pathway through a step-down or step-up process and, importantly, promote an innovative shift from medical to a human rights-based approach to disability. They do this by focusing on the person being supporting and not on their diagnosis or disability, offering staged approaches and an outcomes-focused pathway to recovery, working with individuals to reach goals at their own pace and in their own way.

Impact and sustainability: At the heart of the service is the idea that people should have full autonomy over their lives and next steps; we work with people for whom this has not always been the case. Most of the people we support at the "Move on Project" have extensive lived experience of repetitive use of Statutory Mental Health Services, including having been detained in hospital and experiencing that complete (and traumatic) lack of autonomy and control. The service aims to empower people to be responsible for their own wellbeing through education such as workshops, meaningful occupation, and encouraging hope for the future despite a mental health diagnosis.

Scalability and transferability:

The model is popular with funding bodies due to the outcomes achieved and the realistic cost of a placement at the service. Since opening in 2020, our budget surgeries have proven that the service is sustainable in terms of financial stability, that supports the current workforce. Resources can be drawn on from our organisation to ensure the service functions effectively, while any financial gains are reinvested in the service to sustain building repairs and improvements. The service continues to grow and there are no indicators that it will not be sustainable.

The service has had proven success in supporting people to access community facilities, including paid work opportunities and volunteer work in local schools and shops, as well as part of the Milestones Internal training team. It has supported people to access local colleges and in one case the local University.

Contact information: Helen Aitchison, Senior Operational Manager, Milestones Organisation