ANNUAL REPORT

Step by Step Supporting Independence LTD – Annual Report 2022/2023

Step by Step Supporting Independence LTD has now been successfully operating as a Registered Domiciliary Care Agency for 21 years !  We are all extremely proud of our service and what has been achieved over these years, both in terms of the successful growth of the company and the continued achievements of our service users. 

We support people with a range of disabilities to live as independently as they can in their own homes, in the Dawlish area. This includes service users with Learning Disability, Physical Disability and Mental Health conditions. We are currently supporting 36 service users in total, all of whom live in Dawlish and Dawlish Warren. 

It has been amazing to leave the worst of Covid 19 behind us this year and enable our service users to get back to their normal lives. We do however, remain aware of the risks of Covid, and are closely following government guidelines around this. This includes ensuring our service users are vaccinated accordingly.

We have continued to work closely during the course of the last 12 months with Harbuck Housing Ltd, the housing company that provides and maintains the homes of our service users. With their help and advice on Housing Needs, our service users have the security of very well managed and maintained homes.

Staff Team 

3 Company Directors

1 Registered Manager

1 Deputy Manager 

3 House Co-ordinators

2 Team Leaders 

Full Time staff 

Part Time staff   

Katie Mockridge has now being appointed company director, and Gary Bowld remains as the Registered Manager. They are based at the Step by Step office at Sarum, in Dawlish. They both work one day a week from home but the office is staffed Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm. Gary is also part of the 24 hour on-call team. 

Katie and Gary both hold the Registered Managers Award. Katie holds the 7303 City and Guilds training certificate and the CTTLs Teachers qualification.  Gary is also a trained NVQ assessor. Gary has also completed the IOSHH Health and Safety course and the Level 3 Award in Education and Training.  Katie and Gary both continue to provide some of the in-house training.

Kirsty Poole is the deputy manager. Kirsty supports Katie and Gary with all aspects of managing the company on a daily basis and plays a large role in the organisation and delivery of all staff training, the majority of which is provided ‘in house’. Kirsty has the Level 3 award in Education and Training, and the NVQ level 3 and 4 in Business Management.  Kirsty is also responsible for administration for Harbuck Housing which is based at the Step by Step office. 

Both Katie and Kirsty also hold an NVQ in ‘Housing and Property Letting’. 

Lynn Morris, Val Klippel and Aaron Konetsky are our House-Co-ordinators. Lynn has an NVQ3 in Health and Social Care, and an NVQ 3 in Team Leading and Management. Val holds an NVQ 3 in Health and Social Care and the NVQ assessors award. Aaron is currently working towards his NVQ level 3.  They all work directly with our service users and have additional responsibilities for supervising and supporting support staff, the smooth running of service user’s homes, and general administration. Lynn has particular responsibility for monitoring all financial transactions and bank statements. Val supports Gary with Support Planning, risk assessments and with new referrals.  Aaron has additional responsibilities for house and fire risk assessments. Lynn, Aaron and Val are also part of the 24hr on-call team.

Leah Statham and Lindsey Mockridge are our Team Leaders. They are both working towards NVQ3 in Health and social care. Our team leaders work directly with service users but also have responsibility for supervising and supporting staff, ensuring service users homes run smoothly, liaising with families and advocates and are part of the 24 hour on-call team. 

The senior team are allocated to overseeing the houses as follows; 

lindsey/Gary; Barton Villas 

Aaron; Blue/turquoise house

 Lynn; Sarum/green house

Val; Stockton Hill

Leah; Pink House

We hold a senior team meeting every Friday morning, where we discuss staff and service-user issues and any other company management matters that have arisen. 

NVQ training and mandatory care training continues for all employees as per CQC regulations. 

We provide the Care Certificate, as well as mostly in-house mandatory training. This includes Manual Handling, Medication, Safeguarding Adults, Infection Control, break-away techniques,   Fire Safety and Health and Safety Training. We will continue to use external accredited providers for First Aid training as well as for additional training.

We continually develop our in-house training pack to cover all of our service user conditions and update information as necessary. This includes Fragile X Syndrome, Schizophrenia, Learning Disabilities, Personality Disorder, Downs Syndrome, Brain Injury, Cerebral Palsy, Autism and Asperger’s syndrome.

We rewarded all staff with a significant pay increase this year, as an acknowledgement of their hard work and commitment, and to endeavour to enable our staff to cope in the current financial climate. This has also enabled us to remain well staffed, which is very challenging to achieve at a time when many care services in Devon and across the UK are still struggling in this area. 

Service Users

We continue to operate a main team of staff who support those service users that have high support needs. We also operate a peripheral team of staff who support our service users that have less support needs and are more independent. For all our service users the focus is on enabling them to be as independent as they can be in their own homes.  

 This Year, two new service users have commenced with us, one of whom is a very independent man living at Stockton hill receiving a low level of support, the other is a young Lady receiving a medium level of support living in her own flat at 11 Barton Villas.

Service user holidays have included a cruise, the Calvert Trust, Trips to London, and a B and B break in Cornwall. We have also provided support for service users to attend many events of individual interest including car shows, Music Gigs, and theatre productions. 

We continue to support our service users to access a variety of other local services for day activities, including;  Swan Enterprise (Woodwork) and  Dawlish Gardens Trust (Gardening).

We have supported our service users to access full benefit entitlements. We have also needed to support our service users very closely with budgeting as many are now making more significant financial contributions towards their care to Devon County Council. Some service users who do not have financial capacity have also been supported to access third party financial appointees to monitor their finances. 

We have supported service users to access voluntary work placements such as Shaldon Zoo. We have even supported one service user to access a paid Job at No limits café in Newton Abbot. This has been very beneficial for his self-worth and pride and he continues to maintain the role after 6 months. We have also successfully secured additional funding from Social Services for two service users to attend a weekly social evening at Red Rock in Dawlish. This has been a very welcome addition to their weekly routines which they thoroughly enjoy. 

The Cabin 

Service users are still welcome to visit the Cabin in the grounds of Sarum. Service users are encouraged to visit with their staff to have a coffee and a chat with other service users, or indeed to chat through any issues with Katie or Gary. We also hold a fish and chip Friday which many service users enjoy. We continue to use the cabin for events including parties at Christmas and service-user birthdays. We also use the Cabin for staff training and we have made the large training Room into a Staff Hub. This contains key information that staff need to be aware of such as policies and procedures, as well as a staff photo-board. 

Events 

We held a summer Garden party at Sarum, and would like to thank everybody who attended and helped make the day a success. 

We are holding a Halloween party for the service users at the cabin, they are all excited about that and getting their costumes ready. 

We will again be holding a Christmas meal at the Langstone Cliff hotel for service users in December. We will also be holding a Christmas jumper party at the cabin, to which all are welcome. 

Quality assurance

We are extremely proud of the service we provide and received some very positive feedback when we conducted our Quality Assurance questionnaires in September 2023. 

Feedback from family members/advocates

‘…… (my sister) is extremely happy, confident and secure in her home‘

‘…. The management do their upmost to ensure people are listened to and 

supported.’

‘ ….. (my son) is extremely happy, especially with his keyworker’.

Feedback from service users

‘ they are supporting me well to be as independent as possible’

‘step by step encourage me to try to be independent’

‘all the staff are lovely’

Plans for the future

Katie, Gary and the management team will continue working in the interests of our service users to ensure that they lead full lives and become as independent as possible. 

As an organisation we aim;

* To consolidate our service and retain our small and friendly feel, where managers are aware of all service user issues. This has been key to our success and it’s an approach we are committed to maintaining. 

* To support our service users to retain their support levels as much as possible through ensuring that all care needs are thoroughly evidenced and recorded, and independent advocacy is called in to assist as necessary.  

* To continue to support our existing service users to maintain their quality of life, and physical and mental health.

* To continue to support our service users to engage in  meaningful day activities. 

*To engage with Devon County Council around any new developments in commissioning / monitoring care.

* Early next year (this process has already started) we will be going fully paperless, with all service user and staff records and record keeping becoming digitised. This is following a drive from CQC to encourage this. 

We held a monitoring conversation with CQC (Commission for Social Care Inspection) during 2022, who identified no areas of concern, we maintained our rating as a ‘GOOD’ service. We anticipate a further more detailed inspection from CQC imminently.  

We would like to thank everybody for your support,  and also our staff team. They have been so caring, hardworking and reliable, enabling our service users to continue to enjoy high quality support .

Jan Buckingham/Debbie Watkins/Katie Mockridge

Company Directors.