Care Provider Rolls Out ‘Life Skills Toolkit’ to Enhance Service Users’ Wellbeing and Self Esteem

Specialist care provider, Exemplar Health Care, supports adults living with complex and high acuity needs, with over 35 care homes across Yorkshire, the Midlands, North East and North West. The provider’s care focuses on maximising independence by developing everyday living skills and empowering people to live fulfilled lives.

Specialist care such as this requires a skilled team that has the right behaviours, experience and values to promote a person-centred approach. With this in mind, Exemplar Health Care has developed a Life skills toolkit to providing guidance on how Activities Teams can promote and enhance service user engagement in their homes. The toolkit acts as a helpful framework for delivering outstanding service user engagement as well as creating recognition for teams and homes.

The toolkit includes three booklets that cover the standards required to achieve a bronze, silver and gold award status. Once successfully completed, the home will receive the coordinating award with a plaque and certificate, as well as a celebratory event in the home for all to enjoy. The toolkit is revisited every three months with a Service User Engagement Manager and a Service User Ambassador, to ensure standards are consistently met.

Since launch, the toolkit has been positively received across the homes, in particular at the Grimethorpe-based care home, Dearnevale, where Activities Coordinators have recently achieved a gold award and positive feedback has been given from service users.

Ruth Morrell, Activities Coordinator at Dearnevale said: “We hold regular meetings where our service users discuss which activities they want to do, as a group and individually. We’ve found that more people get involved in the activities we have available, as they’ve had the chance to voice their preferences and decide what they want to do. This could be walks, visits to the gym, gardening, volunteering in the local community and even getting involved in our recruitment process.”