Excellent attendance at Turning the tide launch reflects strong support for tackling multiple needs and exclusions

On 13th September 2011, Revolving Doors and Making Every Adult Matter (MEAM) hosted a parliamentary reception to launch our joint Vision Paper, Turning the Tide: A Vision Paper for multiple needs and exclusions. The report sets out our vision that in every local area, people experiencing multiple needs will be supported by effective, coordinated services and empowered to tackle their problems, reach their full potential and contribute to their communities.  To read about the paper in more detail please see the Vision Paper page.

The evening reception was hosted by David Burrowes MP, with speeches from the Rt. Hon. Oliver Letwin MP, Minister for Government Policy, and shadow Minister Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods MP. The 150 attendees included Baroness Armstrong, Robert Flello MP, Andrew George MP, Dominic Grieve QC MP, Baroness Linklater and Daniel Poulter MP. 

In his speech Mr Letwin welcomed the report’s focus on individuals and made links to the government’s current work on families with multiple problems. He recognised that when we turn from families to individuals, there is not the same idea of drawing together separate budgets to try and address the human being rather than the category of the problem and that government must now do for individuals what it has started to do for families with multiple problems.

Dr. Roberta Blackman-Woods said that people with multiple problems had been targeted by past policy agendas, but that there was still much work to do. She welcomed the call for coordination, stating that we should all reflect on the need to have services delivered in a more coordinated fashion with the person at the centre. She also called for a focus on individual empowerment, so that people are encouraged and supported to tackle their own problems. She pledged to continue pressing the government on multiple needs and the issues raised in the Vision Paper.

Revolving Doors and MEAM are now working together to take forward the recommendations of the Vision Paper, seeking meetings with key figures in government and opposition and working with local areas to explore how, together, we can make the vision a reality.

Photos: (c) Ian Cuthbert ¦ www.cuthbertdesign.com