TRAINING & EDUCATION
Charity Makes Space for Service Users
Making Space’s Quality Officer Karen Robinson explains how she used service user’s know-how to help support staff with person-centred planning, and as a result turned the charity’s entire approach to care-planning on its head.
Making Space, an adult social care charity, wanted to give employees a different perspective on what a care or support plan could look like if a service user completed it without any professional involvement at all.
In order to achieve this we asked a group of service users to come up with a range of fictional characters who needed support.
They had lots of fun, creating some interesting characters, living with a variety of conditions, from bipolar disorder to diabetes. One character, named Bill, was living with schizophrenia, type 2 diabetes, angina, alcoholism, an addictive personality and depression, as well as struggling with family and money worries.
After creating these imaginary characters the participants were asked to develop their own care plans for these individuals, working in small groups without any input from the Making Space team.
The exercise highlighted some major differences between care plans drawn up by care workers and service users. The service users' own plans significantly reduced the role of the support worker and placed greater importance on developing work and social interactions.
The service users pointed out, in no - 38 -
uncertain terms, that there were many daily tasks they were capable of managing themselves, if they had the right kind of support in place.
For example, instead of recording that Bill needed a support worker to do his shopping and prepare his meals, the service users wrote that Bill needed support to enable him to complete those task on his own.
It’s a subtle difference, but hugely significant, and it's the very crux of what person-centred planning is about.
The materials created via this exercise have been so ground breaking that they are now being used to deliver training throughout Making Space.
This scheme has been a hugely positive move forward for service users, allowing them to write their own care plans, and our new training materials, formed during this exercise, have enabled us to continue this initiative and make it a success.
We have already run sessions with our own in-house trainers and they are now taking our new approach out to our 150 services.
The exercise has had a huge impact on the charity’s staff who have realised that many people want to set their own achievable goals, with the support worker there
greater importance on developing work and social interactions.”
to facilitate and support these achievements, not to set them.
The obvious next step for us is to run these training sessions in partnership with service users.
Service user Susan Colligan, from Liverpool, is right behind the new training. She said: “I think they’re looking to us for more information on how to help people. At the end of the day someone with a diagnosis knows more about what their needs are. They’re coming to us to get our experience.”
So, watch this space!
www.makingspace.co.uk
www.tomorrowscare.co.uk
the role of the support worker and placed
“The service users’ own plans reduced
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