News

CoRE NildNet launch

The Centre for Real Excellence (CoRE) project began in April 2007 and involves five major voluntary sector partners which provide services for people with a learning disability: - ARC, Mencap, Positive Futures, Prospects and Triangle Housing Association. 

CoRE’s central aim was to show how collaborative working can be used to free more resources and provide high quality services ‘on the ground’.  

The partnership shared its experiences on 29th October during the CoRE project at the ‘Forward Together’ event at the Hilton Hotel, Templepatrick. This event also marked the launch of the new web site founded by the partner groups - www.nildnet.net. It is hoped that this will be an invaluable resource across the Northern Ireland Learning Disability sector as a whole. 

An invited audience learned how the five CoRE partners worked together to overcome the challenges faced by learning disability services. Speaking on behalf of CoRE, Mencap’s Maureen Piggot said, ‘The voluntary sector can’t ignore economic realities. We need to be more efficient, to maintain services and provide more opportunities for the vulnerable people we support. CoRE is vitally important as it proves that learning disability organisations can work better by collaborating.  The voluntary sector as a whole can learn from it.’ 

In a short time CoRE has made a lot of progress. The Project is viewed by statutory agencies as a focal point for the community and voluntary sector. It now involves almost 30 other agencies, has introduced new management initiatives and- most importantly - is providing better services and new opportunities for some of society’s most vulnerable people.