A big shout-out to the staff and volunteers from the Independent Living Centre in Telford for the amazing job they do in assisting residents to find out more about care, support and living well at home, as independently as possible.
This year the team has been helping over 1,000 local people get the support they need to remain independent in their own homes, which helps to reduce the pressure on the NHS services.
The centre is taking an informal way of helping people who come through the door, making them feel at home.
Ruth Edwards, Community Led Support Coordinator who manages the Independent Living Centre on a day-to-day basis, says:
“What we have here is not a formal desk, the whole centre is a space that mimics people’s homes so they can see what care and support equipment looks like in a familiar setting and try it out.
“We invite people in, offer them a cup of tea and chat about how things are for them, what it is that they find difficult at home. We want to help them find real solutions that will work for them.
“Anybody coming through the door here can talk to either myself, a member of our staff or to one of our volunteers, Experts by Experience, as we called them – people with lived experience of a disability.
“Our advice is completely free. We have equipment displayed around the Independent Living Centre that might make things easier for people at home and we can talk them through the best options of acquiring it.”
To find out more about the Independent Living Centre, go to the Council’s webpage
Take a tour of the centre by watching this video. 
And meet the Independent Living Centres’ volunteers!

Michael, one of the volunteers said: “It gives me an enormous sense of accomplishment if I can send one person away feeling better than when they came in”