Working in Partnership

At DISC we are committed to meeting the complex needs of the people who use our services, those who are often considered the hardest to help. As one of the largest third sector providers in the North of England we have established ourselves as a key provider of services for adults, children and families. Our services cut across criminal justice, drug and alcohol recovery, learning and employment, housing, children and families and personalised budgets. We believe that everyone who helps to achieve success for our service users is a partner, be they:-

• the customer and their support worker,
• the parent, carer or wider family,
• our commissioners,
• organisations we contract with and to,
• the network of agencies and community groups that our staff work with every day
• those agencies with which we have formed very successful formal partnership arrangements

Our strong history of partnership working, spanning over a quarter of a century, our ethos and approach to strengthening existing services coupled with our unique style of bringing together the best from all sectors has paid huge dividends in helping not only us but a number of other smaller organisations to survive and thrive.

We have put contract delivery partnerships at the heart of our business development strategies, due mainly because of the additional skills, knowledge and value that partners can bring to the service we want to deliver.

If you would like the opportunity to talk to us about working in partnership and the potential to develop exciting and innovative services that meet the needs of the people who most need our support, please download and complete the interactive pdf form at the bottom of the page.

Delivery Partnerships

DISC holds 4 key contracts where the service is delivered by a formal partnership of organisations with DISC acting as the lead agency. These are collaborative at heart run through local partnership boards, with formal sub-contracting arrangements acting as the final legal safeguard in relation to governance and performance. These partnerships stand at the heart of DISC’s business model. Supporting small community organisations is something which we believe to be important and which we have been able to utilise in order to deliver effective local services.

• Leeds Community Drug Project
• BARCA
• St. Annes
• St. Martins Health Care
• Journey to Recovery – J2R
• Delphi Medical Service
• Inward House Projects
• Lancashire Housing Floating Support Service – Compass
• Inward House
• North West Community Services
• Together
• Chorley & South Ribble Mind
• Preston Domestic Violence Service
• West Lancs Womens Refuge
• Richmond Fellowship
• Lancashire Young Homeless Project
• Lancaster & District Housing Aid
• Lancaster & District Womens Aid
• Clare House

Partnership Working

DISC has always recognised the key importance of partnership working if we are to deliver integrated services that meet the needs of the whole person. Many of our customers have complex multiple problems that are not helped by fragmented, poorly coordinated responses and interventions. We work to help people access the support and resources they need, in casework terms this is about building the personal and social capital to make and sustain long term change. We have close partnership relationships with a range of statutory agencies and in many cases have become their preferred or primary partner.

We are experienced at working with;

• Drug and Alcohol Action Teams
• Children Services
• Probation Service
• Prisons
• Police
• Adult Social Care
• Housing and homelessness agencies, including Supporting people
• Community Safety Partnerships
• Community and voluntary sector
• Local Authorities
• PCT’s
• GP’s
• Health Trusts
• DWP
• Schools and local colleges

Download: *Interactive PDF Form

*This is an Interactive PDF Form. Depending on your version of Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader, it will enable you to send DISC information about areas of work you are interested in partnering with DISC.

Follow on screen intructions once the form is completed and you are ready to send (the submit button will be highlighted at the top of the form). If there is no submit button available on the form, please print the form out and fax it back (Fax: 01325 316 393), alternatively send us an email.

Email: partnerships@disc-vol.org.uk