View from a home – ‘Implementing the Quality Standards’
Linden Brook provides care and accommodation for up to six children; this can be either day and / or overnight short breaks services for children and young people from the ages of 4 to 17. Linden Brook looks after children and young people with a moderate to severe learning disability or children and young people who have a physical disability, sensory impairment, complex health need or autistic diagnosis
What we like best about the Quality Standards
I personally like the lay out of the standards and how they directly interlink with the regulations as previously staff struggled with them as two separate documents. . The regulation supporting this tells us to support children to enjoy life and have fun and identifies how we can do this.
How we’ve been using the Quality Standards since they’ve arrived in April
All staff have been provided with copies of the standards and our recent recruitment drive incorporated questions about the standards and this made people think. Feedback about the standards both by staff and interview candidates was very positive they feel they are more like “working documents” that can be used to guide and ensure we are striving to meet the individual needs of our children and young people. They appear more comprehendible to staff.
How staff are getting to grips with the Quality Standards
We have talked through them at staff meetings, we feel it makes the service we provide more flexible for us they are not too descriptive but we know what they want from us and how we can make it fit for our service (we are short breaks and different to main stream provision). We regularly ask staff what they can provide “outside of the box” as a learning opportunity for our children, staff are becoming more confident in “positive risk taking” to provide greater opportunities and experiences for our children/young people. Staff appear to have a better understanding but we are driving the standards home and making them responsible for knowing and using them.
How we are using the Guide
The change to ages of staff has enabled us to provide a care leaver with an opportunity as an apprenticeship assistant residential support worker and also we have a young adult volunteer (who supports our reading club), this is brilliant for us it enables us to provide these young adults with different work experiences and break down barriers of their understanding of diversity, disability etc. They also provide a youthful insight into what we provide as a service for young people and help us to develop it with consultation of our children/young people. ith the young people.
We feel positive about…..
I like the term QUALITY and NOT MINIMUM!
My favourite standard is; the enjoyment and achievement standard, it “says what it does on the tin” and this is what we are about as a respite provision
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