Bradford and District Senior Power

The principal activity of BDSP as a charity is to promote the development and delivery of social care and mental health interventions for senior adults, and to provide support to those suffering from mental health impairments, including their families and carers or others immediately affected thereby, within the beneficial area of Bradford and District.

Information for volunteers

In order to ensure external stakeholders - grant donors, stakeholders, volunteers, commissioners, other VCS groups in Bradford - can share BDSP's vision it is important to emphasise the fundamental principles on which BDSP has been built:

ïƒ¼ Service user led services
BDSP aims to provide quality assured services based on need. By listening to service users and volunteers BDSP will use feedback to continually improve its offer, ensuring support services meet the expectations of its beneficiaries - for this reason BDSP will establish an effective structure to collect and review service user and volunteer feed-back.

ïƒ¼ Skilled and motivated volunteer network
BDSP believes its service users should receive the best support provided by a skilled team who share BDSP's values. In turn, BDSP values its volunteers and is committed to investing in their development to ensure service users receive support from a dedicated team of volunteers - for this reason BDSP will implement an effective skills training programme for staff and volunteers to ensure the services delivered by BDSP are to a standard expected by commissioners and beneficiaries.

ïƒ¼ Personalisation and Choice
BDSP's experience confirms that its elderly service users are individuals and that everyone has different needs. This means BDSP's support must be personalised, whether it is short-term, medium of for longer periods of time - for this reason BDSP will develop its capacity to deliver an effective outreach service, in addition to the city centre hub, for elderly adults who are isolated in their homes but who would benefit from support through its volunteer network.

ïƒ¼ Equal access
BDSP promotes equality and diversity within the charity - for this reason BDSP will focus its resources on the development of the capacity of small VCS groups representing minority ethnic population groups in communities where there is little or no well-being service.

ïƒ¼ Value for money
As a charity BDSP is not profit driven. The Trustees of BDSP aim to secure the financial sustainability of the charity by diversifying its portfolio of services and the geography of its targeted resources. In addition the Trustees wish to demonstrate to commissioners and grant donors that BDSP's services are allocated solely for the purposes of fulfilling funding requirements and to account for funds received- for this reason BDSP will invest in systems to collect and record data of its beneficiaries and key outcomes achieved by BDSP.