Welcome to the Voyage Care Podcast. In season one, we’re focusing on how we deliver person-centred care to the people we support. In this episode, we’re hearing from Ian, Senior Care Trainer, Anthea, Service Manager at Woodlands, one of our brain injury rehabilitation care homes in Middlesbrough. We’ll also be hearing from Chloe and Zoe, support workers at Woodlands. They’ll be exploring how person-centred care is important whilst recruiting and training staff.

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Ian:

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Voyage Care Podcast. Today we are going to be looking at person-centred care within training and recruitment processes, and what that term means to us here at Voyage Care. Now my name’s Ian Burgess. I am one of the senior care trainers for Voyage Care based at Group Support. I’ve been with the company since 2009, started as a support worker, worked my way through a number of different roles, including senior deputy and manager, before moving full-time in to the training department. So today I’m joined by some of our staff from Woodlands. We have Anthea, Chloe, and Zoe.

Anthea:

I’m Anthea Russell, a Service Manager at the Woodlands

Zoe:

Hi. I’m Zoe. I’m a Support Worker at the Woodlands. I’ve been working for about two months now.

Chloe:

I’m Chloe. I’m a Support Worker, too. And I’ve just started two months ago.

Okay. So, Chloe, if I can come to you first, could you just give us kind of a overview of your journey so far, from the point at which you first saw the advertisement to where you find yourself now in your role?

Chloe:

Yeah. So I seen it advertised on the Voyage Care, but I actually already did the medication for the Woodlands because I used to work in pharmacy. So I already spoke to quite a few of the staff, and then I applied for the job and then got started pretty soon. I am looking at doing medication at the Woodlands, to get trained to do that as well. I’m training to do the nutrition champion, and yeah, overall I’m enjoying it.

Ian:

And Zoe, how’s your experience been from that point?

Zoe:

I have friends and family who’ve worked at Voyage before, and they’ve all said that it’s really amazing here, and the training’s worth it and everything. So I did apply, and I was quite worried because I’ve only been in education since being here, so I haven’t worked in care before, so I was worried that I’d be lacking and not as good as everyone else, but we did the training for the first two weeks and everything, looked through all the support plans, and there is a lot of information but they do help quite a lot. I want to do medicine in university, so I’m going to get trained for the medication here hopefully, and it’ll all be sort of for when I do medicine.

Ian: 

Zoe, if I can, before you got in to or even decided to take on a career in care, what was your perceptions of care and support and particularly the terms person-centred care? What did that mean to you?

Zoe:

My idea of care was completely different to what it is now. I just thought it was like, I thought of care homes and stuff like that, just an easy job. But since being here, it’s really different and complex and stuff, especially with them having brain injuries here. It’s a lot of things to learn, like you’re learning new things every day. It’s really complex and challenging, but I do like being here. Care is very different from what you think it is before you actually get a job in care.

Ian:

Excellent. Thank you very much for that. And Chloe, can I ask you the same question?

Chloe:

Yeah, it’s a bit the same as Zoe. I think when you think of care you always think of old people in care homes, but obviously when I started here it’s a lot different. It is a lot easier when you start to get to know everyone individually or you understand what people do and don’t like and how you work with them. But until then it’s quite scary when you first start because you don’t know really what to expect. But yeah, it was really different, and obviously when you get in to it you pick up on people’s, what their routines and stuff are.

Ian:

And since you’ve joined us at Voyage Care, has the training that you’ve received from obviously Anthea and the team in service, and the training provided to you by the team at Group Support, helped you to better understand the meaning of person-centred care?

Chloe:

Yeah, definitely. It’s helped me understand a little bit more about it and how everyone’s different, and you support different people.

Ian:

Absolutely. It’s important. We recognize that every single person we support is indeed a wonderfully unique individual. Like all of us. We have our strengths and talents, and our own very often specific needs and wishes. So it’s about ensuring that we recognize and build upon those strengths and talents and meet those needs. So, is there anything you’ve found particularly useful about the training when you joined the company?

Zoe:

The courses, ABI training and the epilepsy training we had with buccal medication. That was really useful.

Ian:

Oh, that’s really good to hear. The thing is, what we need to understand also with person-centred care, is that when we cover different topics, different subjects, we look at general principles, but all of those will need to be applied, often in different ways, for people to meet their specific needs. And another consideration that we in the training department have is to extend that same value to the people that attend the training, all of our staff teams, because we all learn in different ways, and we all have different styles of learning, so therefore we need to recognize that we also have a responsibility to provide a person-centred approach to supporting our staff teams through their growth and development. Can you just give us an idea, just kind of an overview, and example, of how you incorporate the person-centred principles in to your daily role or routines?

Anthea:

At the Woodlands what we do is, with the support plan, we identify that person’s needs anyway with the wishes, the likes, the dislikes, who they prefer to have working with them. And we get all that in the basic assessments, so we have that information on that person, so when we have new workers who come in, in their first two weeks of getting to know the service, they would read them support plans first. Then they would go on to the learning and develop further in-depth knowledge and underpin that personalized care to that person specifically. Then we shadow and I personally go around all the new workers and watch them work, and see how they work individually with each person. And you can tell if there’s any slight personality clash or anything like that, and we look at making it tailor-made to the person who we’re supporting.

Ian:

That’s excellent. Now, the point you mentioned there about personality clashes. The thing is, sometimes we don’t realize that, in the same way that each one of us may have people that we’d prefer to be around and spend time with, it’s the same for the people we support, and we need to understand that personalities may change across different staff members, and some people we support who may be more extrovert would gel better with different personality types. So it’s all part and parcel of the whole person-centred ethos. It’s about recognizing individual needs.

I remember I used to support a young lady on the autistic spectrum who found it difficult to transition between different activities or different tasks. And we were advised by agencies, local authorities, to use a now-next-later chart, so this was introduced, and we had very limited success with this because she wasn’t involved in any of that planning. And so I noticed that we had very limited success. But I noticed that she would often glance at the clock when we were having discussions and we were having chats, and so what I did was I designed a new concept of now-next-later, and by creating a clock face with movable hands, which we then sat, I spent the afternoon with this young lady and web search, image search, on the computer. And think about all the words and the activities that she was involved in and enjoyed. And I typed it in to the browser, pulled up loads of pictures, and encouraged her to choose a picture that was most relevant for her.

We then printed out all of these pictures and put them in a laminated sleeve which I then supported her to feed through the machine, and then to cut them out. We saw a massive improvement in the successful engagement with this process because she had been part of it. She was provided ownership of this new tool. And we found that that actually helped to generate a lot of success. It really is about recognizing what’s important to the person and ensuring that they remain central to any planning and are involved as much as possible in the way we direct their care and support.

I’m sure you yourselves may have some success stories. Is there anything that stands out?

Anthea:

Okay. For me, at the Woodlands, the best thing about personal centered care is seeing that person having a great day. When you see them smile at the end of a day, when they’ve been and done the activities that they’ve chosen or they want to do, to encapsulate all that at the end of the day, I can go happy home, knowing I’ve done the very best of my job.

Anthea:

Making that difference to people, with their interests, we have many talents here at the Woodlands. One chap, he is a third senior dan black belt. He had given up karate after he’d lost both parents, and he’d had to move in to the Woodlands because he couldn’t live alone. And we did get him back to his karate, and it means that we have to skill match staff to take him because he needs somebody with interest who wants to motivate him and encourage him to do better. And he’s actually now a third senior dan black belt. And he loves it. He’s passionate about it. He does karate class in the garden here with staff, and it’s great to see. And we’ve got artists who really engage positively and they actually do present their art in the galleries in the local area. And it’s great that they’re doing that. It shows that they’re doing what they want to do. What do you think, Ian?

Ian:

Yeah, that’s very important. For me, obviously from a training perspective, one of the greatest things is when I have a class and we’re going through the principles and I can see what I call those light bulb moments, where staff actually start making the connections between the knowledge and information that they’re getting to the people that they support and the behaviors, the actions, the things that they say, the things that they do, and you see these little kind of sparks, these kind of light bulbs pinging on where staff can actually make what they’re learning relevant to each of the people we support. And you see smiles, you see people looking at each other and going, oh, yeah, that’s just like. And the way that they take on that knowledge and then think about how it applies to each of the people we support, for me, when I see that I get goosebumps, and I think I’ve done my job. They’ve made that connection. They understand what’s important. How about you, Chloe?

Chloe:

Knowing that we can help them to achieve what they want to achieve throughout the day, and obviously seeing them smile and knowing that they’re happy that we’ve helped them, and sometimes at the Woodlands you will get residents that come up to you and say how happy they are and they’re so grateful for our help, and it just makes you smile. I know there is one resident that she really wants to go swimming. She knows that the others have gone, like two other people have joined the gym, and she’s really interested in going swimming. But she has a few seizures so obviously it is a little bit difficult, but I think working towards it to get the lady to get swimming. I think she’d really enjoy her day.

Anthea:

We do have the clinicians who come in each week, and they’re going to do an assessment and a risk assessment around how to go about doing that so she’s not doing without, but it’s making it safe.

Zoe:

Like Anthea said, my favorite part is seeing them make their own decisions and choices. They have lost a lot of things, having the brain injuries. The whole lives changed, really. But knowing that you’re able to be there and give them the support they need, and they can still have their independence, I think that is the best part of the person-centred care.

Ian:

Obviously it’s for us to be able to deliver on that person-centred remit and that value. We need to have staff who are able to meet those support needs and have a genuine interest so that we can ensure the people we support get the best out of those opportunities. And when we go through the whole recruitment process and the training process, we need to actually then think about how we marry up that combination of people we support needs and interests to staff needs and interests and knowledge and skills. And again, it’s something we have to think about within the training department, because for example, our staff teams are made up of individuals with, again, their own strengths and talents and needs and wishes. So we need to be able to support the staff teams so that we can get the best out of them and they can deliver out the best quality of care for the people we support.

I had a staff member from one of our services who is deaf, and so accessing training has often been difficult. But we were able to now generate for the staff member a live transcript on the call, and just seeing the difference that made when he could attend training and see all of the information being presented in a way that he could access.

We need to consider this person-centred approach to meet the needs of the people we support and also meet the needs of the staff teams to be able to provide that level of support.

Anthea:

Zoe is one of our new workers, and she has fully completed all of these pilot modules, and with these new modules it’s given us an insight in to our own weaknesses as well with courses on stress and mental health and how it affects us, the pandemic, and with that, we were able to find our own resilience, really, within the difficult times that we’ve been in. So as Zoe has completed this course that was put on for us on the 5th of July, how did you find that, Zoe?

Zoe:

I thought they were really good. I know there’s courses where you just read long paragraphs and stuff and you just have to read through them, and it takes too long because you’re not really interested in them. But with these courses they were really good.

Ian:

Yeah. We find that people tend to process information easier in bite-size chunks. If you overwhelm a person, then that information can become difficult to process. So we are moving to a new system of delivery where we create pathways for learning to support our staff teams from the enrollment stage right through to all the different stages of development and career progression.

Anthea:

It’s been an absolute breath of fresh air watching the new workers, new ideas, new way of working, I’ve given them the freedom to use innovating ideas and it’s great to let them loose, free rein, get out there and work with these residents how they need to be cared for.

Ian:

And that’s fantastic. We’re getting more and more staff coming in who are being supported to really get the best out of their roles as well as ensuring the people we support get the best out of the opportunities that we can provide for them.

Chloe:

I just wanted to ask what makes Voyage Care different from the other providers in terms of person-centred care?

Ian:

Well, within Voyage Care, and not just for brain injuries but for meeting the needs of all of the people we support, it starts initially with the assessment of need. Before a person joins one of our services, we need to understand as much as possible about that person so that when they arrive in one of our services we can make that transition as easy and as smooth as possible by having those systems in place. And that is going to create an environment for those individuals to feel comfortable in. Then of course as we start to work with those individuals and develop a greater understanding of those needs, then our support guidelines are written in a very detailed way, covering all aspects of care delivery, from understanding specific needs around communication, mobility, et cetera, as well as understanding as much as possible about the background of the individual so that we can understand their previous experience in relation to their current situation, which can also help us then to develop strategies to meet those needs and to get the best support in place for those individuals.

And then of course we have training. Training across the organization is focused on providing our staff teams with the knowledge, skills, and also to help shape the attitudes that can ensure that the people we support receive really comprehensive and holistic approach to meeting those specific needs. So we cover all of the fundamentals, from safeguarding to positive behavior support, from mobility assistance through to understanding different conditions such as autism, mental health awareness, and of course brain injury. We’ve recently developed a five module course to support our staff in our brain injury recovery and rehabilitation teams to better understand the condition, because we identified previously there have been a lot of great training available to understand the principles of care, but by actually supporting our staff to really understand the nature of the condition and the different impact that it can have across the different people we support, it enables the staff to really understand those changing needs and to support people more effectively through their journey of recovery and rehabilitation.

We constantly review and update the guidelines, because they are a living document. They are an ever-changing record of the person’s ongoing, continuous, changing needs. And all of this information is shared across the staff teams through regular staff meetings, through supervisions and appraisals, to support our staff teams so we can identify their needs so that they’re able to provide the best care and support possible.

Anthea:

Yeah. I think, summarizing as well, as the manager of the Woodlands, when we’re looking at personalized care for each individual, we’re not just looking at filling a bed. We’re looking at somebody moving in who’s going to fit in with the other residents, who’s going to be compatible, and they’re going to be easy to live alongside with. And with that you’ve got to have that specific skill match within the team, and they have got to be able to work with ease with that resident so the transition is easily managed and they’re not going to feel outsiders or they’re not going to feel that they don’t fit in. It needs to work like family.

Ian:

Okay. So Anthea, if I could just ask, how do we in service adapt the knowledge and skills that are provided for staff to meet those individuals’ changing needs?

Anthea:

Working with the staff team in recruitment, you ask all the relevant questions about what they are skilled to do and what they need extra learning on. But to tailor it we have to work on specific people who we look after, and then we can work with that team, especially around the ABI modules one to five, that gives us the really nitty gritty underpinning knowledge to work with a specific person. Zoe and Chloe are working with specific residents who are tricky to manage, but with their skill, they know how to reach out, how to step back, how to support with medical needs, such as people who have seizure activity and need buccal midazolam. They need to know exactly what to be prepared for and how to implement it, should it arise. There is a process. So we go through the care certificate and the probation period, which would identify any further learning. And this would, after the probation period, go on to the diploma levels.

Ian:

Well, thank you everybody. I think this has been a really interesting discussion. It’s been a great opportunity to see how we as an organization address this very important point, person-centred care. We’re understanding what that means, both for the people we support and for our staff teams. So Anthea, Chloe, Zoe, thank you so much for joining us today on this podcast. And if you’d like to learn more about this subject or anything relating to the organization and the work that we do and the support we provide, then please visit our website.

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