One-to-One (Enfield) grew out of the Citizen Advocacy movement. We were launched in 1991 as a project of the national charity, to start a local be-friending scheme. The aim was to support adults with learning difficulties moving back to Enfield from long-stay institutions to connect with other members of the local community.
It was envisaged that this isolated group would, by making friends and making new people, feel included and welcome citizens of Enfield. The initial target was to employ one worker, to recruit train and support volunteers and to set up 30 befriending partnerships. The project was very oversubscribed, so we quickly started to think about other ways of getting people involved in the community. We were creative and developed group be-friendly, self advocacy and peer volunteering as ways helping us to support more people. By 1997 we had broken away from the national organisation to start a locally managed charity.
In 2001 six of our members died they were all men and under 50 years old. This sad year led us to target much more work towards fighting inequalities in health services to people with learning difficulties. Since then we have fundraised for projects to raise awareness to healthy living and provide health improving activities bring in over £1 million t Enfield to help people live healthier lives.
