What is support?
Support varies from person to person and is designed to help each individual to gain the life skills they need at their own pace. With our support, people learn to deal with household chores such as shopping, cleaning and laundry. Project workers encourage people to cook using new recipes and to stay safe and healthy in the home.
“Carr-Gomm have helped to sort out my finances and consequently improved my mental health”
Carr-Gomm’s philosophy of support is to give each individual to whom we offer a service the opportunity to gain the skills and confidence necessary to enable them to play an active role within the community and to move on to independent accommodation wherever possible. As a result, Carr-Gomm will only offer a tenancy or support service to those who we feel can benefit from our services.
Carr-Gomm provides structured support that is designed to be:
- flexible enough to respond to individual's changing needs
- unobtrusive
- person centred
- accountable and measurable
- at each person's own pace
The aim of our support is to enable people to:
- learn from mistakes
- maintain their dignity
- have genuine control over their own lives
- play an active role in the community
- live in independent accommodation with or without support, if appropriate
Support Contracts
Individual support contracts are developed with each person as they join Carr-Gomm. They identify the level of support needed by an individual client, specify the desired outcomes of the support and the necessary steps required to achieve them. Support contract are regularly reviewed with clients to make sure that they are always relevant to the client’s needs.
Individual Support
Once we have agreed with each new client their initial goals and what support they need, we set out the practical details of how and when these will be achieved in an Individual support plan. Individual support plans break down people’s support contracts into more detailed and manageable goals which clients and staff can review regularly and alter depending on each person's progress.
The first step towards independence for some people is improving their basic skills. Many clients struggle with words and numbers, and completing application forms. Carr-Gomm project staff are trained to assess individual levels of basic skills and to suggest ways to raise this. This includes building their confidence and basic skills awareness in our day-to-day support for the client, or helping to access college courses in their area.
Carr-Gomm is currently rolling out Person centred planning as a way to help people choose the support they need in a creative way. Go to Person centred planning for more information.
Insight into ISPs
In 2004, a group of project workers and clients in Manchester got together to make a video about Individual Support Plans. The team worked together on the budget, script, choice of locations and filming. Clients swapped roles with staff to play people running one-to-one sessions and to give information on support.
The team gained skills and confidence from the project. Now other clients are using the video to learn about Carr-Gomm’s support when they first move in. “This video simplifies something which can be quite complicated to explain, particularly for new clients” says one of the staff involved, Dave. Kerry, a client from Manchester agrees: “If you watch the video you will find out that the people in it are the same as you. The video also shows that clients have a say in Carr-Gomm.”
