Our care

All our supported living and residential care locations offer support in all aspects of a person’s life including their mental health and tailor support plans to reflect each person’s individual needs and wishes.

Here at Lifeways, we provide support for people living with complex needs, including:

• An acquired brain injury
• A learning disability
• Autism
• Physical disabilities
• Mental health

Using co-production to keep people at the heart of what we do

We believe that the people we support are the experts when it comes to knowing about what can really make a positive impact on their lives. And that’s the reason we’re so passionate about co-production. 

Put simply, co-production is another way of saying that we strive to include everyone when we design, develop and evaluate our support - that includes our teams, the people we support, their families, carers and communities. It’s been at the heart of our values for the past 25 years. We have many inclusive and accessible ways, such as regular forums and conferences, surveys and reviews to offer people the opportunity to share their views on the quality and development of our support and locations.

When it comes to working together in co-production, we follow four main principles:

• Equality - Making sure that everyone involved has an equal voice
• Diversity - Ensuring that everyone is given the opportunity to have a voice
• Access - Giving everyone the opportunity to take part in many different ways
• Reciprocity - Ensuring participants gain value from doing so, and are recognised for their contribution.

A good example of this is our Lifelines newsletter, the content of which is collated by the people we support, allowing them to share their highlights of news, events and success stories from across Lifeways. You can sign up to receive our Lifelines newsletter here.

If you'd like to read more on co-production, you can do so with Think Local, Act Personal and SCIE.

"Since moving into my new home, I’ve made so many new friends in a safe and supported environment.  I’m now able to socialise and catch up with my neighbours within Lifeways over a nice cuppa in the morning, which really does kick-start the day in a positive way!"

Person supported by Lifeways

Our approach to inclusive recruitment

We believe that the people we support should have the opportunity to choose the team that surrounds them. So we developed our Inclusive Recruitment Toolkit, which allows individuals to be involved with the recruitment of our new team members. This includes:

• Helping to create job adverts
• Supporting in choosing the shortlisted candidates
• Contributing to the questions that we ask candidates
• The opportunity to ask questions in person during the formal interview process
• The option to notify the successful candidate, if they feel comfortable to.

Take a look at the careers opportunities we have here.

Providing Positive Behaviour Support (PBS)

We use PBS to support individuals who may be described as exhibiting challenging behaviours.

Our Specialist Support team use a functional behavioural assessment to understand the reasons why an individual may display challenging behaviours, and from this will create a person-centred PBS plan that focusses on strategies to help improve quality of life and create opportunities for meaningful engagement. Having taken the time to get to know each person, we are able to understand their ability, emotions and behaviours to take a proactive and preventative approach. 

PBS enables individuals to communicate and get the life they want by maximising choice and control, using active support principles to increase participation in everyday tasks, building new skills and taking positive risks in a well-planned and safe manner.

Our Specialist Support team consists of PBS Practitioners and Specialist Trainers who work in close partnership with the people we support, their families and staff teams to provide ongoing support and guidance.

"Lifeways have had such a positive impact on my sister - they’ve supported her to learn so many life skills in order maximise her independence. It takes a big step to trust someone to care for your family member but thanks to Lifeways I've never felt so confident!"

Family of person supported by Lifeways

Taking a person-centred approach

If you’re familiar with care services you may have heard the phrase 'person-centred' before. Put simply this approach ensures that the people we support are able to develop the knowledge, skills and confidence they require to manage and make informed decisions about their own lives, health and support - treating them as equal partners at all times. We also always make sure to directly involve the people who use Lifeways and their families to collaboratively make decisions about the future of our support and locations.

To work effectively in this way we’ve made sure that all of our team have the right values and training in providing this approach and that we continually monitor its delivery. It's important that we work in collaboration with health and social care professionals to provide a consistent, open and inclusive way of working. 

We ensure we enable the people we support to have a voice by carefully considering accessibility to this information, providing it in a range of formats. 

By using this approach, we’ve successfully planned and delivered a range of new personalised systems, embracing and encouraging innovation which enables the people we support to live happy, independent and fulfilled lives.

Using Quality Checkers to help improve Lifeways

Quality Checkers are people supported by Lifeways who volunteer to check out locations in their local area. They are a bit like auditors - they receive training, ask lots of questions and make sure everyone is happy with their support. They recognise and celebrate all the good things about the support people receive, and they can also spot any areas that might need to be improved. 

Quality Checkers visit locations in their area regularly to check that people are happy by:

• Asking specific questions relating to the support individuals receive
• Checking if they are satisfied with their accommodation
• Checking if the area they live in has good services and amenities such as shops, pubs and restaurants
• Also asking questions of the staff who provide support.

Dan Mead, Regional Quality Manager, said: “It’s really exciting to have now have Quality Checkers on board. They do a fantastic job and we are looking forward to rolling out across the whole country." If you are interested in being a Quality Checker, you can email Dan at dan.mead@lifeways.co.uk.