Advance is a charitable organisation providing housing, support and employment services to meet the needs of people in the community who have either a learning disability or a mental health problem. Advance does this as a registered housing association, a national provider of support services, and an accredited provider of employment services.
Our Mission
Advance exists to enable people with either a learning disability or mental health problem to realise their individual potential as valued citizens.
Our Values
Our values are enshrined within seven service principles. We have worked hard to ensure that these underpin all that we do. They remain as important to us as we develop and grow in the future, as they have in the past.
- Everyone must be valued, and treated with dignity and respect
- Everyone has the right to live as independently as possible.
- Everyone has the right to privacy.
- Everyone has the right to good quality housing in the community.
- Everyone should have the opportunity to work according to their knowledge, skills and choices.
- Everyone should have access to local community facilities and services.
- Everyone’s life can be made richer by a wide circle of friendships and relationships.This means that we help people who use our services get to know other people, and get involved with other people or groups, if you want us to.
|
Advance was set up in 1974, when the first of the long-stay mental institutions were closing down and health authorities were desperate to find homes in the community for their former patients. Nearly 30 years later Advance provides innovative housing support and employment services to more than 1500 people across Central and Southern England.
Advance’s Head Office is in Witney, with further offices at 15 sites in England. Partners include local Housing, Social Services and Health authorities, Primary Care Trusts, other Housing Associations, JobCentre Plus, and a large number of voluntary organisations – all working together to provide services according to local circumstance and delivered to meet local need.
Today Advance services cover a diverse range of housing support and employment provision for adults with learning disabilities or mental health problems. This can be anything from small group or registered homes with round-the-clock staff support, to establishing Supported Living projects where service users make their own choices about where they live, who they live with and who supports them. Advance services always place the recipient at the centre of the service, ensuring they are part of the decision-making process at all times. Advance also runs an innovative affordable home ownership programme; this is where adults from both client groups buy their own properties on the open market, and are assisted through the complex process of property purchase by a dedicated Shared Ownership team. To date almost 200 people have become home owners through Advance’s two programmes, SOLD and Own Home, making Advance the foremost providers of Shared Ownership in the country to people with learning disabilities or mental health problems.
Overall, Advance is striving to ensure that, in a period of continuing change and reform, it provides the best possible quality services whilst maintaining its commitment to social inclusion and acceptance. |
