Self-Directed Support works in residential care.
A new excellent guide has been produced south of the border for personalization and care home residents.
It highlights that care homes that have integrated personalisation into how they work put an emphasis on relationship-based, individual person-centred care, rather than what some might perceive as a functional approach to basic personal care. It is clear that such an approach is critical in maintaining dignity and well-being.
They identify the following key tips on care home personalisation:
1. Understand the individual, their interests, background and personal history. It is crucial for developing person-centred care for older people, particularly older people with dementia. For example, it can provide insight into hobbies and interests that can be rekindled.
2. Relationship-based support as well as basic personal care is necessary for delivering personalised services in residential settings. Remembering that everyone is an individual no matter what their condition will help maintain service user’s dignity and quality of life.
3. Supporting families and carers as part of the overall package is also important.
They have also produced a short video to illustrate care home good practice.
http://www.scie.org.uk/socialcaretv/video-player.asp?guid=6848a684-1ef3-4e7c-9c32-a3f029717d93
The story in the clip of Marjorie who has dementia yet through personalisation has re-discovered a new zest for life should surely challenge those who would argue that self-directed support has no place in residential care.
Yet this is precisely what some who have appeared before the health and Sport Committee of the Scottish Parliament have suggested. The argument is that the nature of residential care does not offer the degree of choice and flexibility which are the heart of self-directed support as a philosophy. I find this argument completely vacuous. If we deny SDS in residential care settings we are denying choice and control to a significant and vulnerable part of the population – that in any language is discrimination.
Marjorie shows personalisation and self-directed support work in residential care settings.
