‘Moving On’ assistance has also been provided with accommodation problems, travel and job placements – for example, one Surrey client is now undertaking part-time voluntary forestry work for the National Trust. Our ‘Moving On’ outreach workers based in Lewisham and Woking are now recognised as integral parts of their communities and their specialist knowledge and skills connected with physical disability are increasingly being used in partnership with other care and social welfare groups.

In Lewisham, outreach worker Claire Major is now gaining a steady stream of client referrals and working closely with Headway (cranial injuries), The Stroke Association, and the Lewisham Volunteer Centre. Craig Holder, outreach worker for the Woking and Guildford area, says: “The good news is that the Moving On project itself is moving on successfully. The project has established good relationships with different people and organisations in relation to referring people, and to finding possible voluntary work placement, but we are still working to overcome the difficulties faced by disabled people when trying to find accessible accommodation and transport.”

Claire Major added: “We are now in our third year of this pilot project, but the ‘Moving On’ programme has already proved its worth, not least to the 60-odd disabled people we have already helped in South London. It has been difficult to gain acceptance, but I now regard myself as a fully embedded worker within this community, and am encouraged daily by the changes we are bringing to peoples’ lives by giving them more personal independence.”