About us Support Services Support stories Locations Join us News Contact us Commission us Search About us We're all about people "KeyRing connects people and inspires them to build the life they want." - Our mission statement We are an adult social care provider inspiring people in England and Wales to build the life they want to live. People have so much potential. KeyRing support recognises and builds on this potential. People become peer supporters for each other, they build connections and they become valued members of their local community. The KeyRing approach is based on designing services around individuals and communities, their connections, their skills and their ambitions. KeyRing started 30 years ago with KeyRing Living Support Networks. Our product range now also includes, but is not limited to, help when you need it packages, short term mental health support, support for older people, community hubs and care reduction packages. If you would like to talk to someone about the services available locally please visit our Where we work page. You can find out more about how we work with commissioners on our Commission us page. Find out more about our history Our vision "A welcoming world with communities that celebrate the skills and talents of everybody." Read about our ambitions Our history In 1990 a guy with a bit of common sense and a lot of determination set up KeyRing. His name was Carl Poll. He asked people with a learning disability what they wanted from life. At the time many people were being told that they couldn’t possibly do this or that. And they certainly couldn’t live on their own. When Carl asked these people what they wanted from life, they overwhelmingly said that they wanted their own front door. They wanted support when they wanted it and the option to say no when they did not. ‘Sounds reasonable’ thought Carl so with some equally forward thinking people in Wandsworth, London, he set up the very first KeyRing Network. We started by providing support to people with learning disabilities. Then in 2006 we decided that everyone deserved access to KeyRing support. Today, around two thirds of the people we support have a learning disability and we also work with people who have mental health issues, people who experience homelessness, older people, people with addictions and other people. We’re not keen on labels but we know that they help people decide whether we are right for them, so we work with them. The people and the labels. We continue to change people’s lives and challenge what people can do, as well as what others think they can do. A word from our Chief Executive KeyRing originally came about from talking to people with learning disabilities about what they wanted from life. Time and again people say they want their own home, to be free to live life how they want, to have friends, romance and families. Social Care limitations mean that people have to show need, disability and lack of resources in order to get support. These two positions are incompatible; everyone has something to offer. KeyRing creates an environment that offers just enough support, through peer support, volunteer support and skilled community enablers. It is built upon the skills, knowledge, and experience of the people we work with (Members) and their networks. In the same way, we are working with many others through Think Local Act Personal and #SocialCareFuture, with our Local Authority partners and our community partners. The world we want to see is one where people are at the heart of their communities, sharing skills and talents for the whole community’s benefit. We are keen to share our experience and approaches with Local Authorities, organisations and groups. Our ambitions We co-produced these ambitions alongside the people we support and our teams. We really and truly did. It probably took us much longer because we spoke with a lot of people and then went back to check we’d got it right. Only after that did we ask the trustee board if they were happy to sign it off. We couldn’t be prouder of the result. Our ambitions for 2020-2025 Grow but keep KeyRingness - we want twice as many people to be experiencing KeyRing Just keep doing what we’re doing – we don’t want to change who we are Be part of the community – we want to be a part of the communities that we work in More for Members to do and learn – part of this is supporting Members into paid employment More opportunities to meet other Members Use technology for the benefit of everyone Find other ways to fund KeyRing More partnerships with other agencies Making it Real Find Out More In 2018 we signed up for Think Local Act Personal’s Making It Real framework. Making it Real calls for people to be central to their care and support, It inspired us to put the people we support at the heart of our strategic review. So, we spoke with Members and staff across the country and asked them to: Describe KeyRing in a word Think about the future of KeyRing and what we should keep doing Talk about what we should stop doing People really feel passionate about KeyRing and our future. They want more people to experience KeyRing support. People said that we are supportive, helpful, friendly honest, social. We found some common themes that we built our strategy around. Then we went back to people and made sure that we’d got it right. Only then did we ask the board of trustees to sign it off (they’d been involved throughout and were really supportive). Home About us What we do Support stories Locations Join us Commission us News Contact us CJS Complaints and compliments Privacy policy Cookie policy KeyRing Living Support Networks 21 St Olav’s Court Lower Road London SE16 2XB Charity No. 1054234 Company Limited by Guarantee no. 03176431 Telephone: 020 3119 0960 Email: enquiries@keyring.org Contact Us To chat about any of our support options or how we can work with you call us on 020 3119 0960 or... Use our contact form Cookie Preferences © 2021 KeyRing. All Rights Reserved. Here at KeyRing we use cookies to: - improve our website performance; - help you share our content across your social media networks; and - personalise our advertisements to you. To accept our cookies please click the button below, or for further details and the chance to specify your cookie preferences please click ‘more information’. You can change your preferences at any time by visiting the “Cookies Preferences” page, which can be found via our footer. View our Privacy and Cookies policies for full details.