Over the years we have had a few good staff involved with us (social workers, OTs, support workers, etc) but sadly most have been pretty hopeless.
My daughter has been using an agency who send support workers to help her with cooking etc and we have probably seen about 10 in 2 years. Today was their last day as another agency is starting. Her two favourite support workers took her out for coffee and lunch because they have loved working with her. She was thrilled as she doesn’t really have any friends. They have gone above and beyond with supporting her but most of the others are just not experienced or lack the skills to work with people with special needs. They literally take on anybody and that is so wrong.
Then yesterday we had a meeting with a Manager from the new agency and what a breath of fresh air she was! No airs and graces, no playing with her phone, spoke exactly right to my daughter and fully included her in the conversation. I am keeping my fingers crossed that this all works out.
We also have a pretty good social worker at the moment who my daughter gets on with and she knows exactly what my daughter is like and how to talk to her and get the best from her. Yet we have had some rubbish ones like a woman who shouted up my stairs and called my daughter a “silly little girl” when she was well in her 20s and then had to apologise and nearly broke down herself!!
Hi Penny, sadly we have the same experience - just a handful of professionals who know how to communicate with and understand the needs of someone with autism and related LD.
I hope this new agency works out for your daughter and you hang onto the social worker for awhile.
Penny
A lovely positive post from you! Long may it be able to continue.
Slightly different but I understand what you mean. When hubby was either in the nursing home or hospital, how I sighed with relief when the more competent caring staff were on duty, who understood him as apposed to the ones who didn’t even try.
Penny, I long for the day I can retire safe in the knowledge that M will be well cared for.
Last weekend I told them of three different events on. Apparently it was “too hot” so instead they sat in the car on the clifftop at Bournemouth, as the Saturday activity, and on Sunday M went to a 60th birthday party. Great I thought, he loves a party, but from what I could gather he didn’t even know whose party it was. All the staff were there, so I suspect it was a member of staff’s birthday. He had a cone of chips and a piece of birthday cake, which I suspect was his “meal”! He’ll be home this weekend as we are steaming up the steam roller, so one of his favourite days of the year. I’m taking him back. Driving 30 miles will inevitably upset my arthritis, but I’m taking pictures of his staff rota and menus now.
Bowlingbun …… that’s all we ask isn’t it? What a waste of a weekend for M!! When my Mum was briefly in a care home it was all too obvious that they had no interest in taking residents out or engaging with them. There was a church right opposite the home and they had posters up for weeks and bunting etc advertising a garden fete. I wrongly assumed they might take some of the older people to sit and have an icecream and socialise with people as it was a glorious day but they couldn’t be bothered. Likewise they never took them to sit in their garden …. Only the staff used it for a smoke break!
A few weeks ago we had a weekend away at a Warners Leisure Hotel. Everything was great including the weather. There were 2 coachloads of special needs adults staying there and it was wonderful to see them having a great time, dressing up for dinner, enjoying bowling, swimming, archery and participating 100% in the disco dancing in the evenings.
My husband and I were so impressed because they seemed to have almost 1-1 carers and every single one of them (apart from one young woman who looked bored and uninterested and was impatient with her caree) was totally engaged with their caree, genuinely enjoying being with them, encouraging them to try new foods and activities and just making sure everyone had a great holiday. I now have 40 years experience of people with special needs and the people who are paid to care for and support them. I can spot a rogue carer in a couple of minutes!!
They came from an organisation called REACH in Newark, Notts and if anybody on here knows of them or has a family member who attends then rest assured they had a fabulous holiday and their carers were brilliant. but that’s how it should be.
My eldest son is fortunate enough to be supported by four key members of staff, three who have known him for five years and one who has known him for two years. One member of staff in particular stands out as being exceptional. This member of staff regularly helps my son with his motorbike (and dissuades him from experimenting to try to get the bike to go faster), has taken my son down to his uncle’s farm (and got to know my brother) and, knows the strategies and approaches that help my son to regulate himself when he gets too overwhelmed.
As Penny has said, a good carer/support worker will enjoy being with their client and be interested in what the client is doing. If it is obvious to us as observers that someone is not interested in their role, then it will certainly be obvious to the caree.
Good carers happily are out there. I recommend interviewing a few different care companies in order to find out a bit more about the company in question. Pool your resources. Make some brief summary notes. Do your own homework properly too. Good luck. Prepare yourself for everything that may happen as well. Trust your gut instinct.
Thara
If someone is in a care home nursing home or supported living there are brilliant members of staff. Some good and some quite useless. Its the luck of the shift which sort of staff on duty. The lovely staff make a difference to the way all feel
If caring parents raise issues they are first ignored then excluded. The retiring Head of LD told someone, in writing, not to talk to me! I came across an agenda I wrote for a meeting with my son’s providers in 2007. 16 years later most things remain unresolved. Just repeated meetings with new staff going over the same things, action agreed, but never implemented!
I had a introductory meeting with a care provider a few years back. It did not go well. But I decided to try them anyway to see if I could make it work.
