The Quality Checker ‘Good Care Month’ – Winner announced!
At Consensus, out team of Quality Checkers play a vital role as advocates for the individuals we support, ensuring their views are heard and acted upon to help improve how we are delivering care and support to meet their needs.
In addition to this, through the many fantastic initiatives they organise throughout the year, they have created a wonderful sense of community across Consensus, giving our colleagues and supported individuals an opportunity to showcase their skills and talents and form strong connections and long lasting friendships across different services.
Their latest ‘Good Care Month’ competition, launched in March, provided our supported individuals and their teams with an opportunity to reflect on what ‘good care’ looks like for them and tasked them with using their ideas and creativity to come up with unique and interesting ways to articulate this within their entry submission.
The judges were very impressed with the level of all the entries and the hard work and effort that had gone into preparing the submissions, which ranged from hand-made cakes to PowerPoint presentations, personal portraits and visual displays.
While competition for the winning spot was fierce, the judges were pleased to announce Ophir Road, a residential service in Bournemouth, Dorset, as the overall winner, with Little Smugglers, a residential service in Crawley Down, West Sussex, as the runners up.
Winner – Ophir Road
The support team at Ophir Road recognised that their team had to wear many hats in order to provide ‘Good Care.’ As well as being a care professional, they were also a companion, coach, educator and ‘community bridge-builder.’
Claudia Vaidean, Service Manager at Ophir Road said, “We help people to live fulfilling lives, to be an inclusive part of their community and to develop and maintain relationships.”
“We enable people to overcome their fears and challenges whilst helping them to build confidence and self-esteem,” added Claudia.
The team put together a powerful PowerPoint presentation which highlighted the unique attributes of each member of the support team.
The judges said they were particularly impressed by Ophir Road’s entry because it demonstrated that everyone within the service had their role and played an important part in supporting and developing the people we support; including them in life both in and outside of the service.
Each member of the team has different attributes which are used holistically for the benefit and fulfilment of the people supported, which was clearly evidenced in the photographs and the details provided about their contribution to the service.
Runners up – Little Smugglers
In preparation for their entry, the supported individuals and support team at Little Smugglers came up with lots of ideas for what ‘Good Care’ meant to them and also reflected on the impact of good care – how it makes you feel, how important it is, how it is shown and what would happen if we didn’t have it.
At Little Smugglers, everyone is quite partial to a cake or two and supported individual, Graham came up with the idea that they should put everything they had discussed into a cake!
The main word that kept coming back to the table was “Inclusion.” The supported individuals and support team felt it was so important to be included and to feel a sense of belonging, so Graham and support worker, Bev got their thinking caps on and began designing a cake with “inclusion” as the main focus.
Graham designed the cake on paper and Bev bought his design to life on the computer. Graham and Bev sat at the computer tweaking elements until it was just right, then on Saturday 13th March, Graham and Bev spent all day in the kitchen bringing their creation to life and what a fantastic job they did too!
The idea for the cake was inspired by some artwork that the team produced during the first COVID lockdown. The team had painted a rainbow of hand-prints on the side of Graham’s workshop in support of the NHS to show their appreciation for all their hard work during the pandemic. Graham wanted to incorporate this into the design as he felt the NHS has been the backbone of ‘Good Care’ for the past year, so he designed a rainbow pattern for the base of the cake.
Graham and his support worker spoke about inclusion and what identifies as inclusion and how they could demonstrate that on a cake. Together they came up with lots of good words for inclusion including, togetherness, supportive, kindness, relationships, equals and values.
Graham came up with the idea of using hands as hands represents all of these words. The cake was designed with six large hands and 12 little hands. Five of the large hands represented each of the five supported individuals who reside at Little Smugglers as they are the main focus of ‘good care’; the 12 smaller hands represent each member of the support team and how they promote ‘good care’ throughout every aspect of their day to day tasks and demonstrate that the supported individuals are at the heart of everything they do, and the sixth large hand represents Service Manager, Tracey Dingle, as she is the glue that holds everyone together.
In selecting Little Smugglers as the runners up, the judges said they felt their entry stood out because of the unique and delicious(!) way they found to express their views on ‘good care.’
The entry involved lots of inclusion from the people supported at the service and focused on the sentiment that it is so important to be included and feel part of a family and part of a team.
Here’s a look at some of the other fantastic entries for across Consensus:
Blossoms, Wellingborough, Northants
Perrywood House, Prader-Willi Syndrome service, Kettering, Northants
Royal House Supported Living service, Greater Manchester
STEPS Supported Living service, Wellingborough, Northants
