Lily was referred to our services following a number of placement breakdowns where teams had not understood or been able to support her behaviour. Lily had a diagnosis of Autism, Severe Learning Disability, and associated needs, displayed smearing behaviours, and refused to wear clothing. Her wider social network had broken down, and Lily was living in isolation with none to little chance at a happy, ordinary life. Following assessment, our specialist teams identified that we could provide Lily with a placement and begin to support her behavioural presentations to give her back the quality of life she deserved, identifying the reasons for her behavioural presentations instead of just reacting to them, and planning ways to teach her functional skills so Lily didn’t need to engage in challenging behaviours.

Through starting a specialist transition with Lily, her family, her professionals, and the information already known about her, we began to build a person-centred plan about how we could support Lily and began transitional visits to Lily to identify the ways we would need to support her. Our core focus was the upholding of Lily’s Human Rights, identifying life goals and opportunities for her, maximising her integration into community services, and providing her a placement that was bespoke to her wants and needs so we did not become just another temporary place for Lily. We were sure we could meet her needs, so we committed to Lily.

Before moving came, and as part of her transition, we used Social Stories with Lily to prepare her for her move, and after a transitional period Lily was familiar with the staff she would be supported by in her new placement, and had begun to form respectful, trusting relationships with them. We identified a Keyworker for Lily to lead the transition, and they were supported by our PBS Team to plan for all of Lily’s needs. At every stage we kept every stakeholder involved, sought feedback, shared our plans, shaped them based on feedback and made sure that everyone, most importantly Lily, was involved from the beginning.

Fast forward following Lily’s move into our service, and she has thrived! Lily trusts the team who supports her, she has visits with her extended family, has acquired a number of functional communication skills to express her needs, wishes and choices, wears clothing, accesses the community several times a week, and no longer needs to use behaviours that challenge to communicate her distress because her quality of life is good. Regular placement monitoring takes place, with feedback gained from Lily’s circle of support, and through adopting a true partnership approach we’ve given Lily back her dignity, respect, time with family and a home she loves in an apartment all of her own. 

Working in collaboration is at the heart of what we do, and this is never more important than when supporting adults with Autism and Learning Disabilities. Our Station House service works closely with different healthcare professionals, and we understand that the professionals visiting have large caseloads of individuals and cover a wide geographical area. Our role is to make sure that we provide the platform for the professionals engaging with us to have access to the very best quality information. 

An example of this is when we work with our Community Learning Disability Nurses; we communicate regularly with them, involving the resident in these plans and using augmented communication techniques as verbal prompts, and ensure a warm and friendly welcome awaits them at the commencement of their visit to us. As a regulated Social Care service we hold an extensive range of information about people, and while all of this is very much needed, we know that making the most of the time of the professionals visit means that we provide the information, they require – whether this be verbal handovers from staff or access to care records – and that this is clear and shared in a coordinated manner. 

Feedback from Community Nurse

“A Nurse went to Station House and advised that she found the staff extremely helpful whilst she was there, they introduced themselves appropriately – which may sound like a small thing, but they were appropriate telling her their name, then repeating their name so she would remember. All the paperwork was clear, all the information was included, it was appropriate, not overloaded with old information and the paperwork was in order. The Nurse said it was a pleasurable visit. Most importantly, she explained at length about how positive and nice it was to see the interaction between staff and the people living at the service this was two people in particular (staff and person who lives at the service), she said the relationship was clearly well established and very positive. Oh and hospitality was good as well”

For us, empowering people to be part of every aspect of their lives is crucial, notably healthcare visits given the health inequalities we know that people with Learning Disabilitiescontinue to face, but also because we believe that person centred care is more than buzz words, it’s about providing the person with the tools and mechanisms to understand a visit, time to process this and time to think about how they want to get the most out of this, and ask the questions that are most important to them. To enable this, we use specialist interactions prior, during and after visits to affirm that we act beyond words, and that the relationships between residents and their staff are built on respect, are empowering and positive. 

Andy is a Clinical Practitioner who has worked in the Adult Social Care sector for over 20 years across the UK, with specialist experience working in large, national Providers, and small businesses with adults with Autism, Mental Health & Learning Disabilities across Residential, Supported Living, Domiciliary Care and Day services.

Andy holds Fellowships with the Royal Societies of Medicine, Public Health and the Arts, is a Registered Scientist with the UK Science Council and is a Board Certified Autism Specialist who is in training to become a Board Certified Behaviour Analyst. 

Andy is a qualified Adult Trainer, a Member of the Charted Teaching College, and specialises in delivering training to staff in the areas of Autism, Learning Disability, Augmented Communication and Mental Health. Andy has a true passion for Positive Behaviour Support, teaching skills to staff to support adults with behaviours that challenge, with a core focus on human rights and improving the lives of people with complex needs.

Spring is here and the Easter holidays have just passed – and we certainly made the most of it at Godfrey Care in every single one of our residential homes. Our dedicated staff aim to make each holiday and occasion special for our residents and sometimes that means going the extra mile. 

Over the Easter Holidays, one of our amazing staff members from Ashby House donned a giant fluffy white Easter bunny costume and hopped around all of our residential homes to meet with residents and spread some Easter cheer. Our residents spent some time in the garden with the Easter Bunny, surrounded by nature and springtime which was a great mood booster after a cold winter. 

Our Easter bunny bounced around with an Easter basket fitted with colourful gift bags containing tasty chocolate egg treats for every single one of our residents to enjoy. It was great to see our residents laugh and smile at the Easter bunny and pose to get their photos taken with him, even our staff wanted to join in the fun! 

At Godfrey Care, we want our residents to enjoy fun experiences they will cherish and be able to look back on with delight. We work hard to make sure that the people in our care get these experiences, whether it is visiting a park, having a pamper day, or celebrating annual holidays like Easter with the friendly Easter Bunny.

We take pride in the commitment shown by our teams to deliver high quality support to individuals we take care across all our homes and are always happy to receive recognition of this from families, professionals and the CQC. Station House was recently inspected by the CQC in an unannounced visit where the home received excellent feedback and recognition of all the hard work that the team have put in since its last inspection.

The inspector praised the relaxing and homely environment that they observed and how this was obviously reflected in how comfortable the residents were. The report highlighted that our staff clearly followed guidelines and regulations around ensuring the safety of those individuals that we care for. The team were also praised for their excellent understanding of each residents care plans and how their individual needs could be met.

The leadership of the home were commended on changes that they had implemented in a short period of time to ensure that there was a robust recruitment process, increased staff knowledge/training, robust procedures around medication and rigorous reporting procedures. As part of the CQC inspection families of individual’s who live at Station House were contacted for feedback and they commented “there is brilliant leadership. As a result, the staff seem happy and seem to enjoy working there”. External professionals who worked with the Station House team also praised the homely environment and the friendly and professional approach of the team at Station House.

All key lines of enquiry were rated as good and that is something that we are extremally proud of and wanted to thank the whole Station House team!