What We Do

Supported Housing

Open Choice provides short or long term housing with support for Young People / Adults set within comfortable self contained flats in and around the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire counties.

Open Choice offers 24 hour support and guidance. The main objective is to promote independent living while offering the promotion of employment, further education and training, household living skills, socialization, confidence building and step by step programmes centred around the individual.

These programmes include:

Life Skills, Mental Health, Offender Management, Young Mum's To Be and programmes for people with Learning Difficulties. Please see Our Services area for relevant programme links.

Independent Outreach Support

We also offer Independent Outreach Support for people who do not require accommodation from Open Choice.

We advocate on behalf of all our clients and are ready to respond to any crisis or emergency 24 hours per day, 365 days a year.

We support our clients at police stations, courts, hospitals, interviews, college, benefit agencies and many more.

We liaise with other professional services and work closely with social services, youth offending teams, mental health teams, learning difficulty teams and many others.

What Can You Expect From Us?

"Service is the life blood of any organisation. Everything flows from it and is nourished by it."

Some young people and adults at times need to be assisted to make positive and responsible choices within their own lives. We would seek to help them with this and in particular to have their say in their own Placement Reviews.

Clients who move on from Open Choice should be able to take with them positive memories of their period of life in which we were involved. Open Choice will always liaise with the clients Social Worker and other important professional people in their lives. We will work positively to develop our client's abilities.

Our clients will always be treated with respect and in our experience this will be reciprocated. Open Choice is run by a small group of people who have a common interest in providing quality supporting services for young people and adults. Our backgrounds include, challenging behaviour, mental health, counselling and criminal justice, especially with young offenders, experienced outreach work and previous service delivery experience.

Clients needs in relation to their race, culture and religion should be respected and we would seek to provide for these.

What else can you expect from us?

•  24 hour support – 7 days a week, 365 days a year

•  Structured Support Programme Sessions with flexibility in length

•  Self-Contained Furnished Flat – (6 months with possibility to extend)

•  All bills included in fee

•  Transportation to and from appointments

•  Court work and Reports

•  Custody Support

•  3 and 6 month Planned Reviews

•  Incentive Money and Activities

•  Mobile Phone provided (Pay as you go, client responsible for credit)

•  Weekly Progress Reports forwarded

* All staff are suitably experienced in working with young people and adults.

* All staff hold the necessary CRB Certificates – Further training will continually be provided and all staff will meet the requirements of The National Care Standards.

Open Choice aims to provide its clients with a positive experience of independent living, with support/project workers, who also act as personal advocates, who are experienced in dealing with many of the difficulties that may be presented. This also includes supporting and advocating on behalf of our clients in meetings such as LAC Reviews, CPA's and Whole Life Reviews. They will actively promote the rights and welfare of our clients and enable them to grow and develop.

Open Choice works actively to promote equal opportunities and liaise closely with other agencies.

Structured daily contact with 24 hour support is at hand.

The activities arranged by Open Choice are used as part of the client's therapy to build self esteem, confidence and relationships.

Open Choice accesses London Gliding school on behalf of its clients.

Also for under 16's and Over

Respite and assessment breaks for one to two weeks in length at either;

•  A cottage in the New Forest or Lake District

•  A trip on a Narrow Boat

•  Or a stay at Centre Parcs or the equivalent