Lawrence, who lives in Outwoods House, is a big Yu-Gi-Oh! and Warhammer fan. So, when the opportunity came to attend the launch day of a new games shop Geek Retreat in Burton Town Centre, Lawrence was very excited to get things planned to make the most of the days activities. Staff supported Lawrence to choose his outfit for the day and get into the cosplay spirit! 

On the day support staff attended the opening launch at Geek Retreat with Lawrence who had the chance to take part in table top card games such as Pokemon, Warhammer and Yu-Gi-Oh! whilst enjoying a milkshake and burger. 

Lawrence said he had a great day and that he can’t wait to get to go again and he is looking forward to the chance to meet new people who share similar interests, a place where he feels comfortable to be himself whilst enjoying taking part in games that he enjoys.

Working in the care sector has been extremely difficult over the past few years due to Covid and the Nationwide staffing shortages that present challenges every day.  But the Registered manager and his team of amazing support workers at Station House have really gone above and beyond recently in the levels of care they provide. We recently sent out feedback forms to the service user’s parents and the comments received back from them are an example of the hard work the staff have been putting in. 

·      Our Daughter is treated with such care and compassion by the wonderful members of staff that look after her.

·      The manager and his staff genuinely have the welfare of our daughter and other adults first and foremost. A truly lovely home, which we feel we have been extremely lucky to find for our daughter. 

·      Station House has done an awful lot of work these last few weeks to enable the home to grow from strength to strength. It has put a lot of plans in fruition to keep the home and everyone in it safe.

A key part of what we do to empower individuals that we support is to help with the development of independent daily living skills that would allow them to move onto more independent settings. With this aim in mind, we are delighted to announce that we have purchased our first home that we will soon start working on to convert into a shared supported living home. 

Supported living is an alternative to residential care homes, where individuals will be provided the same high levels of support but in a more independent setting. 

This means that some of the individuals that currently live in residential settings will be able to move into more independent settings when they are ready, and be assured to receive the same high quality of support that they have become used to with us, but in a more independent environment. 

To head up this new offering we are delighted to welcome Kerrie Lightwood to the management team at Godfrey Barnes Care. Kerrie come’s with a wealth of experience and knowledge of the sector having headed up a substantial portfolio of successful supported living schemes across the region in previous roles. 

In addition to this we are very proud to have partnered up with a reputable Housing Association that will ensure the needs of individual’s placed within this home are met to the highest standards and that any support requirements that they may have are always picked up.  

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As part of the Easter celebrations service users across all sites have taken part in planting sunflowers in their homes gardens. This will form part of a competition across sites to see which home can grow the tallest sunflower. Additionally there have been several garden parties, Easter egg hunts and lots more outdoor activities making the best of the amazing weather that we have been having and giving the service users a safe opportunity to get out and about whilst still under the lockdown.

Other activities have included creating a McDonalds themed dinner after a few of the service users mentioned that they would like to go. Due to lockdown we couldn’t, so the teams took this as an opportunity to make an activity with the service users and helped them make their very own home-made McDonalds meals! 

We always say that we are immensely proud of the teams we have and the amazing work and dedication they show, but in light of the challenges that we all face during this hard time words struggle to describe the immense feeling of pride that we have to work with such amazing teams and service users!