St. Margaret’s Network is a rights-based service offering a wide range of individualised, bespoke supports and services tailored to each individual. We work with each person to broaden their opportunities to make choices and decisions about their life, to have valued social roles, and experience the good things of life.
Our work centres on John O’Brien’s Five Value Experiences – Community Presence, Relationships, Valued Social Roles, Promoting Choice, and Supporting Contribution, which are central to achieving and experiencing the universal good life – love, family, friendship, participation, respect, dignity, and privacy.
Services are individually designed to support each person to become a contributing and participating member of their community. Supports range from personal supports to exploring and discovering opportunities for a better life – making choices and decisions about life and lifestyle, living in their own home in their community and experiencing independence and autonomy. Supports will flexibly respond to their changing choice and needs throughout their life.
St. Margaret’s Service Framework is Supported Self-Directed Living (SSDL). Supported Self-Directed Living is a practice relating to high quality person-centred individualised, rights-based supports that enable individuals with disabilities to maintain and develop full and meaningful lives in their community.
Through the SSDL approach St. Margaret’s works with each person to support them have choice and control and to determine their life and lifestyle choices with the necessary flexible, responsive supports to enable and empower them to do so. SSDL is underpinned by of Social Role Valorisation (SRV) which recognises that people who have valued social roles and meaningful engagement with their family, friends and community are more likely to aspire to, access and achieve the good things of life, providing them with better health, happiness and life outcomes.
SSDL is the intentional planned way we work with each individual through a journey of relationship building, engagement, discovery, and connection that supports them participate in activities and gain natural experiences that we all have in our lives. The impact of these experiences is to support each individual to make choices about what they like, about planning and achieving their dreams and aspirations; getting to know what they want; choosing where and with whom they want to live; experiencing everything from fun to failure and continually resetting their goals. Without these experiences in life, we become marginalised.
The Fundamental Values – Our Service Framework is underpinned by, reflects and promotes:
