Good to Great is a project building on the way we work to give staff the tools they need to develop imaginative, person-centred methods of supporting people.
The emphasis is on freedom to work around the unique needs of people we support, rather than organisational requirements or standardised practice.
Pilot project
Staff from the North West division of United Response took part in an exciting pilot programme which aims to make supporting people easier, more efficient and most importantly, more person-centred.
The results of this project were used as examples of good practice at an international conference in Oregon.
Helen Sanderson of Helen Sanderson Associates, an agency specialising in person-centred thinking and planning presented and used the results of some of United Response’s ground-breaking work in this area at the annual international person centred practices conference.
Helen and her colleagues have supported United Response in this work.
Based around a core set of training tools, the pilot had a fantastic impact on the lives of people we support – and on the staff who support them.
Members of staff are leading training in all divisions, along with coaches, who are leading the work within their services.
Case study: Helena Ward, Service Manager, Derbyshire
“We thought it would be good to try using the tools to help us choose a new person to come and live in one of our services.
We worked individually with each of the existing tenants to find out what they thought was and wasn’t working. We then established what qualities they thought were important for any new housemate to have. Some of the things that came up, for example, were that they wanted a non-smoker, someone who works in the day, like they do, and someone who was interested in football and music.
The next step was to collate the feedback and send it to Derbyshire Social Services. This showed very graphically how important it was that the people we support had input into the decision from day one.
Using the new tools seems to have made a real difference. We have found a potential new tenant and he’s already met the guys and stayed over. Fingers crossed it will turn into something permanent!”
