On October 10th 2006 the Secretary of State for Health, Patricia Hewitt announced a £1 million investment fund to help with Social Enterprise start up costs. The funding was to be made available through a competitive process and services were invited to make an application to the new DH social enterprise unit to become a pathfinder. The journey for WISMS started out here and like a ball coursing steadily down a snow covered mountain it has gathered momentum and breadth along its way. A few weeks prior to the Secretary of State’s announcement a number of commissioners and providers in substance misuse, mental health and regeneration played host to Lance Gardiner and Chris Dabbs, two senior and prominent figures in the world of social enterprise. We met at Pugneys Country Park on a bright, late summer morning amongst the healthy walkers and cyclists. Lunch was provided by one of Wakefield’s recent social enterprise successes – “Catering Plus” and we were left feeling enthused about the prospect of taking WISMS forward as a social enterprise with our key partners. However at that stage we were left with the realisation that if we were to be successful in taking a service as complex and interwoven as WISMS and bringing staff from health, local authority and Turning Point together on this journey to become a social enterprise pathfinder we needed to have collective vision, a clear set of aims and objectives and an underpinning social mission. The journey to pathfinder is the story of how we are developing our vision the work underpinning the composition of the WISMS application and how we have communicated and consulted with stakeholders. Both the application and the accompanying business plan is a living document accessible to staff and service users to influence the course of the journey itself both bow now and in the future. A small steering group led by Dr Linda Harris, Clinical Director of WISMS, is working to meet the 28th November deadline for receipt of applications. Preliminary legal advice has been sought to facilitate our thinking in terms of legal form and organisational structure An on line application to Futurebuilders in respect of the development of WISMS as a social enterprise has been completed. Wakefield District Council, Turning Point and the Royal College of GPs are also close to the application as key stakeholders. The Substance Misuse Joint Commissioning Group have supported the pathfinder application in principle as have the Family Services Directorate of the Council, and the PCT Senior Management Team. The work in progress is charted in the PowerPoint presentation attached here entitled “Where next for WISMS? Considering social enterprise as a model for future service provision” You are welcome to use the presentation and the content of the application itself which includes ideas on legal form and organisational structure in any discussions with staff or partners. The ‘journey’ will be updated through the website which will be an integral component of the communications and marketing strategy of the WISMS application. The site will be updated at regular intervals to keep you posted on the status of the application once we have submitted it on 28th November 2006. The need for staff to gain a comprehensive understanding of the benefits of becoming an organisation that seeks to trade for a social purpose is a key and requires involvement and personal time. We will be endeavouring to create as many opportunities in as many different media as possible in order to facilitate knowledge sharing and staff involvement. This Journey has the potential to unlock the true potential of the sum of the organisations and partnerships that contribute to services we offer. We have attempted to capture this in our answers on the application form. It is vitally important to all of us to that we feel confident that the vision we have is the one to be taken forward and to generate a true sense of ownership so please, if you are able, make time to contribute, to comment, to express concerns, to share ideas. This is not any one single person’s journey; this is our journey Dr Linda Harris | 
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