We have a good core team of staff supported by a regular pool of bank staff. Some of the staff have been at the home for many years and have good knowledge of existing service users.
Paul Morgan – Registered Manager
Paul has got a lot of experience working with learning disabilities and clients that challenge.
He has got a diploma within the challenging sector. This was achieved through open learning. Paul went to Lancaster University and studied Health and Social Care and graduated in February 2002. He provides day to day administrative management and also addresses staffing levels. He also ensures that all clients’ needs are met. Paul is responsible for building up relationships with outside agencies and other professionals. In addition to being responsible for all that is required within the group Paul ensures that all procedures meet government standards.
All staff are required to be CRB checked alongside two references. If successful new staff are required two undertake a two week induction before working alone. Paul believes that all staff have to do some training that is provided by the LDCG group. This enables everyone to team new skills and give every individual staff member an oversight of what government standards require.
Other staff members
Our newer staff members have been selected carefully, to not just fit into the existing team, but to bring additional knowledge and experiences thus freely challenging existing held views and making recommendations so that the team as a whole can benefit and in turn, provide on-going improvements for service users. Our strategy is to encourage all Seniors to work towards NVQ 3 and all carers / Support workers to work towards NVQ 2.
Our Care Standards ensure that we place the rights of service users at the forefront of our philosophy of care. We seek to advance these rights in all aspects of the environment and the services we provide and to encourage our service users to exercise their rights to the full.
We work hard to not only comply with, but strive to exceed each of the 43 National Minimum Standards. We apply checklists to ourselves to continuously monitor our service and trigger evidence-gathering trails to evaluate our home's performance systematically against the corresponding criteria and elements of each standard.
The main aim of The New Barn and all of the homes that come under LDCG is to enable people with learning difficulties to have an "ordinary" life. We achieve this by encouraging and working with our service users to be fully integrated into the community in which they live and to take part in its activities according to their individual needs, abilities and interests. All our staff are trained and supervised with a view to their achieving such positive outcomes for our service.
We thus continue to value each and every individual, who comes to live at The New Barn. When an application is made we first assess the applicant's suitability and motivation for engaging in the type of programme that we have to offer. We discuss fully our philosophy, aims and plans with the service user and their relatives and representatives. From this initial assessment we work out jointly a plan of care for that individual and proceed from there. This ensures that the individual service user is at the centre of all our helping efforts and this helps us to avoid taking an institutional approach to their care.