Our Working Together Board
Our Working Together Board was established in November 2023, and we co-produced our Mission Statement to be ‘A community led collaboration of stakeholders, taking a critical friend approach to reshape the role and delivery of adult social care in Somerset in order to support people to live the lives they choose’
The Working Together Board meets on a quarterly basis co-chaired by the Executive Director for Adult Services in Somerset, and an Expert by Experience elected from the membership of the board. We began by establishing three subgroups – Co-designing our Adult Social Care website, Practice Quality Board and our Learning Disability and Preparing for Adulthood Strategic Co-Production Steering Group.
Members of the Board led changes to the Adult Social Care website resulting in improved use of language and design, as well as improved navigation. The Practice Quality Board has quickly proved its value by enabling the voice of users of services and carers to directly impact on the quality of social work practice. The steering group considering co-production for those with a Learning Disability and Preparing for Adulthood has been focussed on the work to support self-advocacy and a re-established Learning Disability Partnership (see below) . This group is also offering oversight and input to the review of respite services being undertaken in 2026.
A vital piece of work led by the Board in 2025 resulted in a co-produced pledge document. This outlines and explains the Board’s commitment to working together and the key principles all members sign up to.
The Board has overseen a research project with Open Storytellers, funded through a community grant scheme to support people with learning disabilities and autism in Somerset. The project trialled different approaches to promoting self-advocacy around Somerset to identify what works well. Open Storytellers began by setting up a project team and the ‘Our Self Advocacy’ brand. They also launched ‘The Big Somerset Self-Advocacy survey’ (to map current activity, connect with others and identify what is important to the learning disability community in Somerset). The next steps for developing structures to promote and facilitate self-advocacy will form commissioned activity from the same grant scheme, to begin in 2026
We have also been working to re-establish our Learning Disability Partnership Board, taking a ground-up approach that includes the work to rebuild our self-advocacy support for people with learning disabilities. The first meeting of the new Board will take place in early April 2026 with the intention of it becoming a powerful voice that drives the agenda in the future and holds system leaders to account.