ANNUAL REPORT
Step by Step Supporting Independence LTD – Annual Report 2023/2024
Step by Step Supporting Independence LTD has now been successfully operating as a Registered Domiciliary Care Agency for 22 years ! We are 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.
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. Harbuck responds quickly to all emergencies. Harbuck worked hard this year to keep all of our service users appropriately and locally homed when an unexpected emergency situation did occur at Barton Villas during the summer. Service users were temporarily homed and returned to their flats once the work was complete. The Step by Step staff were extremely hardworking and flexible around these temporary changes, ensuring that the service users were always as well-supported as possible.
We have not received a CQC inspection this year. Our service retains its ‘Good’ rating and we wait to hear from CQC in the near future.
Staff Team
3 Company Directors
1 General Manager
1 Registered Manager
1 Deputy Manager
3 House Co-ordinators
3 Team Leaders
Full Time staff
Part Time staff
Katie Mockridge (RNA) remains as the General Manager and a Company Director, and Gary Bowld (BSc, MSc) 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.
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 and Risk Assessments. Aaron has additional responsibilities for house and Fire Risk Assessments, and with the implementation of the Care Control paperless recording system. Lynn, Aaron and Val are also part of the 24hr on-call team.
Leah Statham and Lindsey Mockridge are Team Leaders. They are both working towards NVQ3 in Health and Social Care. We are pleased to announce that we have also promoted Tagdh Grahame to Team leader this year. 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;
Val; Barton Villas
Aaron; Blue/Green house/ Mark and Dan’s flats
Lynn; Sarum
Tagdh; Stockton Hill
Leah; Pink House
Lindsey – Turquoise 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 have remained well staffed, which is very challenging to achieve !
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 Barton Villas with a low level of support. The other is a lady receiving a high level of support now sharing a home with an existing longstanding service user.
We had to say goodbye to a much loved service user this year, who passed away in April. This was a very upsetting time at Step by Step, she will be very much missed and always remembered for her character and cheeky smile.
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. One service user was supported to fulfil his dream of watching England play football this year.
We continue to engage with other services to ensure good outcomes for service users, including social workers, occupational therapists, GP’s and the IATT team (for supporting with challenging behaviours). We have worked with social services to obtain additional support hrs for several service users so that that can they access social activities and for additional physical support during exercise sessions. We have also closely supported a service user who was suffering with issues leading to severe stress/anxiety and challenging behaviour, he is now much improved due to strategies our service has successfully devised and implemented.
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 supported one of our service into paid work at a café called ‘ No Limits’ in Newton Abbot. This commenced as an 8 week internship, but they were so happy with him that they offered him a permanent and paid part-time job.
We have supported our service users to access full benefit entitlements. We have recently supported one service user to access 2 large back payments of money owed back from benefit agencies, totalling £10,000. 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. This year some service users have been supported to set up ‘Money-Carer’ as an independent financial appointee. This is operated online and has been very successful so far.
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, Gary or Kirsty. 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 BBQ at Sarum (we raised funds for Exeter leukaemia Trust) , a Valentines party and a Halloween party, and would like to thank everybody who attended and helped make these days a success.
We will be holding a Christmas meal at the Langstone Cliff hotel for service users in December.
Quality assurance
We are again extremely proud of the service we provide and received some very positive feedback when we conducted our Quality Assurance Questionnaires in September 2024.
Feedback from family members/advocates
“ I think he’s really happy and has settled in really well’
‘if he has a problem, the team are quick to sort things out’.
‘ I am happy that the staff help her make the right decisions in life’
‘Enjoys all activities with staff ‘
‘Gary and the team do a really good job, and have done for many years now’
‘He likes the staff and feels like he can relate to them’.
‘ even when ****** is spending time at home she is always happy and eager to go back to her home’.
Plans for the future
Katie, Gary and Kirsty and the rest of 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;
* Early next year 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. Tablets will be used for all information and recording and software called ‘Care Control’ will be used.
* 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, including paid work.
*To engage with Devon County Council around any new developments in commissioning / monitoring care.
*To continue to use Money Carer as an independent appointee for those who lack financial capacity and refer others to take up its services with our support.
We anticipate a detailed inspection from CQC in the near future.
We would like to thank everybody for your support, and also our staff team. They have, as ever, been so caring, flexible, hardworking and reliable. This has enabled our service users to continue to receive high quality support and positive outcomes.
Jan Buckingham
Debbie Watkins
Katie Mockridge
Company Directors.