History of EF

2001	Equal Futures was founded after members of PLAN Canada visited Scotland in 2001 at the invitation of Scottish Human Services. PLAN Canada was set up by relatives of people with disabilities in response to their concern for the future of their family member, for the time the relatives would no longer be able to support them. Fundamentally, their concerns centred on the quality of life that their relative might experience and on the contribution that their relative should be allowed and enabled to make to their community. Rather than depend on government programmes and funding, PLAN Canada has developed a successful and highly valued approach which supports individuals and families lifelong. This is achieved by building individual, family, community and corporate relationships and has developed a new way of thinking in British Columbia about capacity and contribution and about disabled people and their families as a social and economic force. PLAN Canada has now been running for 14 years and currently supports over 5000 people in different ways. A group of family members in Scotland were inspired and impressed by this organisation and what it offered; aware from their collective experience that identical concerns and needs are present, but not addressed, in Scotland.
2002	With encouragement and support from PLAN Canada, in October 2002, Equal Futures registered as a company limited by guarantee and a charity with a founding Board of Directors. Since then, five of the Board members have become lifetime members committed to setting up networks for their relative with a disability.
2004	In 2004 a grant was secured from the Big Lottery Fund to appoint the first paid staff. The staff team consists of a manager, 2 network coordinators and an administrator. At this time our office was established in Edinburgh.
2005	In November 2005 we were delighted to welcome guest international speaker on inclusion, Connie Lyle O'Brien, at our launch presentations in Edinburgh and Glasgow in November where over 200 people heard all about Equal Futures' new and innovative work building and maintaining Lifelong Circles of Support and what these Circles can achieve.
2006	In 2006 we spent our time reaching across Scotland through partner organisations and directly to families through a program of information evenings and workshops for anyone who could benefit from being part of Equal Futures 'vision of inclusion, advocacy and control for and by individuals with a disability.
2007	In 2007 we have had some big changes to the organisation including welcoming our new director Denis Rowley and administrator Kim Craven. We have been focusing on creating good working relationships and links with other like minded organisations and service providers to be able to reach out to more people. All our members are linked by a common cause and in pursuit of this we are now holding regular events encouraging families to get to know each other, participate in discussing and progressing issues and to essentially become part of Equal Futures. We have also embarked into new territory for the organisation and we are selling training to both professionals and families alike on many areas of inclusion.
2007 - present	Equal Futures continued the work of support to families and people with disabilities. In particular, in the year from 1st April 2007 to 31 March 2008, we had established and were actively supporting 18 Circles of Support for families with a disabled relative. In August we recruited our new part-time Director, Denis Rowley. Prior to formally taking up his post he was able to spend some time in Vancouver with PLAN Canada (whose work inspired the establishment of Equal Futures). Later in the year we began to negotiate a contract with PLAN to produce a Scottish Edition of one of their highly successful books for parents who have a son or daughter with a disability. (At the time of writing this project is well underway and should be completed in Autumn 2009). We also developed a strong working relationship with Neighbors Inc from New Jersey and began to develop a joint project with them. We also formed links with newly emerging PLAN groups in England. Alongside our regular introductory briefings for families interested in finding out about our work, we continued to run regular workshops on Wills and Trusts, Guardianship Financial Planning and Housing Options for families with a disabled relative. We commenced work building Circles of Friends for isolated and vulnerable children in mainstream school settings in both the Lothians and in Ayrshire. The Ayrshire work was contracted by the Local Authority, while the Lothian work was funded by successful applications for funding to local Trusts. In November we were invited to make a presentation to the Scottish Government’s Same As You Implementation Group about our field leading work. We subsequently applied for funding, and in February received notification of a Section 10 grant of £212,000 to commence in financial year 2008/09. We continued to do presentations on our work to a wide range of organisations in both the public and the voluntary sector. We were successful in recruiting two new Board Members, Pam Green an experienced Social Work Manager and Roger Spooner, a parent and Lifetime Member. In order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our activities, the Board did significant ground work in conducting a cost analysis of building circles of support and also drew up a an audit tool which will, be used to canvas the opinion of our member families on key aspects of our programme of work in 2008 and at regular intervals thereafter.