Ashton View Homeless Persons' Unit Housing Support Service

Transcription

1 Ashton View Homeless Persons' Unit Housing Support Service 28 Ashton View Westcliff Dumbarton G82 5DS Telephone: Type of inspection: Unannounced Inspection completed on: 11 August 2016 Service provided by: West Dunbartonshire Council Service provider number: SP Care service number: CS

2 About the service This service was registered with the Care Inspectorate on 2 September Ashton View Homeless Persons' Unit is registered to provide a housing support service to people over 21 years old who are homeless. Accommodation within the unit is provided to a maximum of eight individuals in shared flats with private bedrooms and shared communal facilities. The service is provided by West Dunbartonshire Council. The service provides accommodation and support to individuals based on an agreed support plan and a structured plan of group work activities. The service aims to provide accommodation and support to people over 12 weeks and then support them to move on to either permanent or longer term temporary accommodation. The service also provides some short term resettlement support to enable the people who move on from the service to be secure and confident in their new accommodation, thus supporting tenancy sustainment. What people told us We spoke to three people who were using the service and observed a group facilitated by staff with seven people attending. Some of the views people shared with us included: "The staff are there for you 24/7. I can talk to them anytime day or night, they are brilliant. They have really helped me grow in confidence, they helped me source a rehab place but it didn't work out as I wasn't ready." "The group work is good, get a lot out of it, not just helping me but other people too so we are supporting each other." We sent 10 care standards questionnaires to the service and received nine completed questionnaires prior to our inspection. Some of the comments from these included: "Good support, staff are approachable." "It is a safe and secure environment to stay in." "As soon as you walk in the building you are made to feel welcome." "The staff are very good at their jobs, and treat me with respect. I have a very good relationship with my keyworker as well as other staff." "My time spent at Ashton View helped me address my issues at that time." We spoke to one stakeholder from the service's main referral and partner department within the local authority. They told us the service worked in a professional and effective way to ensure that it could support people to move on successfully from the service and move out of homelessness. page 2 of 6

3 Self assessment We did not receive a self assessment from the service prior to our inspection. We raised this with the manager and gave advice about making sure the service self assessment is kept up to date throughout the year to ensure it is a live document that can accurately capture and reflect the progress and developments within the service. From this inspection we graded this service as: Quality of care and support Quality of staffing Quality of management and leadership 5 - Very Good not assessed 5 - Very Good What the service does well We found that the service was operating to a very good standard. We found that personal plans were in place to help identify people's support needs and how these could be met. These included outcomes stars that enabled outcomes to be measured and changes made to support in order to ensure people made progress in achieving their outcomes. The service offered group work for service users that covered issues related to tenancy management and sustainment, as well as personal development and awareness sessions looking, for example, at motivation and anger issues. These groups helped people have opportunities to reflect on the reasons for their homelessness and take steps to get additional help and support if needed in order to address these reasons. The service offered various opportunities for service users to express their views. These included monthly service user involvement meetings and weekly key working sessions. We saw that the service responded to people's views and took action to make improvements in the service. This included making changes to group activities and improving provisions within the accommodation. We found that the service had effective links with partner agencies in the local area. These included local businesses who were donating food and employability services that were planned to provide group work to service users. We will look at how this has progressed at the next inspection. The service reviewed outcomes by analysing the outcome star scores on a six monthly basis. This was used to create an action plan that the service then used to address areas where service users needed more support to achieve their outcomes. We noted that there had been improvement in the last six months' scores demonstrating the service was performing very well in helping people to achieve all their outcomes. The service had a very good range of effective quality assurance methods. These included regular staff supervision, performance reviews with staff, a range of audits and a variety of meetings that enabled effective communication and information sharing. We saw that staff working in the service were encouraged to develop skills and use their initiative. This contributed to a positive leadership culture. page 3 of 6

4 What the service could do better We thought that risk assessment reviews could be more detailed to show the reasons for the outcome of the review. We discussed this with the manager who agreed to make some adjustments to the paperwork to allow this information to be captured. We also suggested how the information board in the lounge area could be improved. This included considering use of permission from service users to display images or photographs of them or developing a "you said, we did" style of board. We advised the manager to update the service information leaflet with a summary of the service aims and objectives. These were contained within service agreements but we thought it would be useful for people who had not yet started to access the service to see these. There could be more detail within group work action plans so that these were more specific and outcomes could be easier to measure. We thought meeting minutes could be made clearer to show any actions from previous meetings and monitor progress with this. This would help contribute to the service's ongoing improvement and development. We thought there could be more discussion at team meetings about best practice, research and developments within social care, particularly in relation to the group work that the service was carrying out. This would help to ensure that group work was based on the most up to date evidence based knowledge and practice. We referred the manager to some useful resources and websites. The service could improve the quality of records in relation to incident reports and follow up actions. We discussed how incident reports showed what action was taken immediately after an incident, for example a service user could be given a notice to leave the service, however it was not clear if this actually happened or if additional support was put in place. The manager described that the service would always try to work with people to ensure they could help them to live within the rules and responsibilities of the accommodation. This was not clearly evidenced in incident reports. We suggested some method of follow up on incidents could help ensure this was clear to see and would give the management team better oversight of incidents and staff responses. Requirements Number of requirements: 0 Recommendations Number of recommendations: 0 page 4 of 6

5 Complaints There have been no complaints upheld since the last inspection. Details of any older upheld complaints are published at Inspection and grading history Date Type Gradings 9 Jul 2014 Announced (short notice) Care and support 4 - Good Environment Not assessed Staffing 4 - Good Management and leadership 4 - Good page 5 of 6

6 To find out more This inspection report is published by the Care Inspectorate. You can download this report and others from our website. Care services in Scotland cannot operate unless they are registered with the Care Inspectorate. We inspect, award grades and help services to improve. We also investigate complaints about care services and can take action when things aren't good enough. Please get in touch with us if you would like more information or have any concerns about a care service. You can also read more about our work online at Contact us Care Inspectorate Compass House 11 Riverside Drive Dundee DD1 4NY enquiries@careinspectorate.com Find us on Facebook Other languages and formats This report is available in other languages and formats on request. Tha am foillseachadh seo ri fhaighinn ann an cruthannan is cànain eile ma nithear iarrtas. page 6 of 6