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Enable and Empower Members

From the Group Guiding Principles: The Post Polio Support Group is member led and Polio Survivors are central to its work.

The Group will embark on a programme to devolve the running of the organisation, as appropriate, to local level under the general direction of the Board. This will be done in a graduated way with ideas being tested and proven and then developed organically.
It will develop a structure to run a devolved organisation. The first phase will be based on three territorial divisions to the same boundaries as HSE Dublin Mid Leinster plus Dublin North East, HSE South, and HSE West. It is intended that seminars including representatives from each social support group should gather to point the way forward. Such divisions will elect delegates to represent them, appropriately, including progression to Board membership. The process will start in the East followed by the South and West.
The Group will respond to this challenge and put the mechanisms in place to facilitate this development, including changes, as necessary, in the Memorandum and Articles of Association. A training and development programme will support this empowerment programme.
A programme will be put in place to gradually devolve functions such as training, social support, including telephone support, fundraising, awareness and public relations, information distribution, and growing the membership. A guiding principle will be not to overload particular people with work but to recognise that there is an untapped willingness to work for the Group amongst the membership.
The Group will work to ensure that its members feel that they have ownership of their lives and lifestyles and will continue its policy of providing development opportunities for members and deepening their roles in running the organisation.
Social support, whether face to face or by telephone, is a growing force in the lives of Polio Survivors, family members, friends and other carers. Perceptions are changing that social support is for all not just those who need help. There is a developing fellowship arising from the involvement of more people in these activities. There is huge potential for these groups to develop themselves and to be agents to help fellow Polio Survivors, drawing in non polio volunteers, as required, and to advance the work of the Group. The recruitment of non-polio volunteer support for Polio Survivor activities will be actively pursued.
This plan builds upon Plan 2010 and is not meant to replace it.
Click to see Plan 2010