Gig buddies: project report: January 2013 - December 2014

Author(s)

STAY UP LATE

Publisher(s):

Stay Up Late

Publication year:

2015

This evaluation report looks at how the Gig Buddies scheme has developed, the lessons learned, and the way support is offered to people to be less socially isolated while new types of volunteers are created in the process. Gig Buddies is a project that pairs up people with and without learning disabilities in Sussex to be friends and to go to events together. This report also looks at the plans to replicate Gig Buddies as a social franchise (‘Gig Buddies in a box’) by sharing experience and creating a model that enables replication, whilst also protecting the integrity of the project. The report argues that the pilot project demonstrates that Gig Buddies has the potential to transform communities, enabling many more people with learning disabilities and autism to be less socially isolated and unleashing the capacity of communities to become more involved in voluntary work. (Edited publisher abstract)