WHO WE ARE
St. Margaret’s Network is a rights-based service working with adults with disabilities, supporting them to live in their own home at the heart of family, friends and community and to access the good things in life. As a rights-based service working individually with people, we provide a wide range of supports, including bespoke individualised supports, access to housing, community connection & engagement and decongregation from residential /communal settings.
As a not-for-profit limited company and registered charity, established in 2019, St. Margaret’s Network works with the HSE and sectoral partners and is governed by a Board of Directors that assures service outcomes are aligned with our Strategic Framework.
As a specialist in Supported Self-Directed Living, we fundamentally believe that every person has the right to have control over their life and to have the necessary supports that enable and empower them in their life choices with their service flexibly responding to their changing needs and choice throughout their life.
Ordinary Lives Programme – Individualised Supports
The programme is founded in John O’Brien’s Five Valued Experiences – Community Presence/ Relationships/Valued Social Roles/Promoting Choice/Supporting Contribution-translated into the universal good life –love, family, friendship, participation, respect, dignity & privacy underpinned by their fundamental right to be determiners of their own lives and, with the right and appropriate supports, can do so – UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.
Individualised supports are a personal, social service which includes a range of assistance and interventions required to enable the individual to live a fully inclusive life in their community. This requires the provision of a flexible range of supports that are tailored to their needs and are primarily determined by them. This provision enables people with disabilities to live as full citizens instead of having to fit into standardised models and structures.
Supports include assistance, whether in the form of personal care, communication, or advocacy support, learning support, therapeutic interventions, assistive technology, adaptations to the physical environment, aids & appliances, and so on. They are further supported in their health needs through their GP & Primary Care Teams and, as required, other health practitioners provided by St. Margaret’s.
Individualised supports are characterised as being primarily:
People with disabilities have the same aspirations and rights as all citizens: to belong, to be in relationships, to live with the intimacy and security of their family and friends and to be included in ordinary lives in ordinary places, as they wish. Our support focuses on the individual in this way, finding ways for them to express their will, preference and choice and doing it with them.
