People at the Laurels and Rowans day opportunity services involved in art therapy – painting and designing murals.
Directly Provided Services (DPS) offer a range of social care services. This includes seven day-opportunity services, six residential and a countywide Shared Lives scheme where people are supported within Shared Lives carers' homes.
We provide services to around 600 people a week, employ just over 350 people and work out of 11 buildings across the county.
Our services work every day to support people to live the life they want to lead and we are committed to enabling people to regain and maintain their independence, making best use of what is on offer within their local communities.
To find out more about what we do please visit the DPS section on West Sussex Connect to Support.
Spotlight: Co Production Event – working together
Staff and people who use our services held a Directly Provided Services Co- Production event in 2022 to showcase and celebrate many of the co-production projects during the year, as well as to facilitate networking and future planning. The great work highlighted included easy read COVID-19 guidance produced during the pandemic, People Panels formed by individuals who use services to be used as part of our staff recruitment process and contribution to easy read versions of the Adult Safeguarding procedures.
Recruitment
Recruiting staff has been challenging as it is for the rest of the country across the health and social care industry. We promote our services as widely as possible and regularly visit job fairs, schools and colleges to encourage uptake of work experience opportunities and apprenticeships and to highlight vacancies. We involve people who use our services in the recruitment process.
Please visit our DPS recruitment page for more details on working in our services.
Day Opportunity Services
Our day opportunities can help people to maintain or increase their independence and enable family and friend carers to have a break. Day opportunities also provide a more local service supporting people to be confident in the community where they live. The services are for older people, older people with mental health support needs, people with dementia, people with a learning disability or autism, and those who may have a physical disability, sensory impairment (sight or hearing difficulty), memory loss or a brain injury.
The Burnside self-advocacy group at the Burgess Hill Town Council Chambers designing their own town with the support of the Town Council members
