Last week we held our annual UK conference and welcomed members and individuals from across the whole of the UK to attend workshops and the annual AGM, network with one another, hear from our keynote speakers and attend the fantastic 2022 Shared Living awards ceremony.
It was a great opportunity to introduce our new CEO, Ewan King and this was the third occasion we’ve held the conference online, allowing more people to attend and celebrate all areas of work that we do.
Opening the conference were Kathryn Smith CEO Social Care Institute for Excellence and our keynote speakers with lived experience, who all provided inspiring awareness of Shared Lives, Homeshare and Family by Family – explaining how their lives had changed due to sharing their life with other people.
Ewan King held an excellent panel discussion surrounding how community-based support can change and grow across the UK with insight from Josh MacAlister, chair of the Independent Review of Children’s Services, Alex Smith, CEO The Cares Family, Steph Downey, Service Director for Adult Social Care, Gateshead Council, Tom Milnes, Shared Lives Ambassador and Emma Parrish-Andrews, Homeshare Ambassador.
“We need the system to adopt a mindset which says our job is not to provide a relationship as a service but run a service and help it flourish.” – Josh MacAlister, chair of the Independent Review of Children’s Services
An array of workshops was on offer to all attendees, there was something for everyone to enjoy and learn from. To close the conference, we celebrated Shared Lives carers, schemes, Homeshare programmes and Homeshare participants across the UK at another amazing awards ceremony.
You can read about all the inspiring award winners here
