Our people

All the work that we do — and all the stories in this annual review — have only been made possible through the efforts, ideas, commitment and passion of our staff.

As with all our work, our focus is on each individual. We encourage people we support AND staff to create "personal profiles" — that set out what’s important to them and important for them — and how they like to work and to be supported. And we support people to choose the staff who support them, matching interests, skills and talents.

We take the view that a person centred approach should apply to people who work for United Response as well as the people we support. Enthusiastic, committed and skilled staff help people we support create better lives for themselves.

This year we launched our new performance management programme "Developing Excellence" to demonstrate our commitment to developing and retaining our 2,500 staff. It is based on a person centred approach, which aims to identify an individual’s strengths and development needs, based on their ability to achieve the relevant competencies set out for their job role, and any future roles which they may aspire to. Developing Excellence is an interactive approach which centres on the individual, as well as the team, with a focus on delivering — and constantly improving — a high quality service to the people we support. It's about enabling the best individual and team contribution to our efforts on behalf of the people we support.

This couples with our person-centred tools and thinking to create a focus on the individual, throughout everything we do.