My name is Gillian McBain and I work with Ayrshire Independent Living Network (AILN).   Working throughout Ayrshire, we are a peer-led organisation providing advice and support services to people who get Self-directed Support.

We support people through the choices available to them, and can help with information on employing Personal Assistants and/or the services of a care agency through to what insurance is required, PVG checks and arranging interviews for PAs.  We also offer a payroll and budget management service. The important thing is people have accessible information and support throughout the process on an ongoing basis.

AILN were successful in a bid to the Scottish Government – Support in the Right Direction, and we’re keen to demonstrate the role and benefits of independent support in Self-directed support (SDS).

We have been working hard to develop a new updated logo, a new website and accessible information materials. To make these as relevant as possible, we organised a varied focus group of people who use our services to advise us on the type of information that would be helpful to them and other newcomers to SDS. We also consulted extensively with RNIB when choosing the colours and design for the logo and fed this back to the focus group who then helped us to choose the final design.

We’ve also made a video called ‘Ayrshire stories about SDS’ where people discuss how they started using SDS and the impact it has had on their lives. The video has BSL and subtitling and is available on our YouTube channel.

All our social media channels are up and running and we’d love for you to connect to us on them.