Ashdale House, and now Oakdale House, are two-bedroomed care homes designed to make service users feel more at home than they would in a larger care facility.
Why a 2-bedroomed care home?
Many 16 to 18-year olds within Children’s Services, likewise adults within care, require a supportive living environment where they can develop their independence, their skillset and form meaningful relationships.
Larger care facilities can often mean there are a range of age groups, a large range of complex conditions and more often than not – many individuals who unfortunately do not benefit from true 1:1 care and support due to the large number of individuals living in their home.
Our 2 bedded en-suite model, with communal lounge, diner and garden area, allows for smaller care teams. We have implemented a robust mixing strategy in order to place individuals of a similar age, with similar complex needs within a care facility to ensure the care teams can provide more enhanced, person-centred and supportive care.
The homes are purposely positioned within a local community, which also means individuals feel more connected to the outside world and can truly make their care facility a home.
Care services
One of our younger guests has been working with our care team, to transition smoothly from children’s to adult services. Typically, individuals will have to leave the care facility they may have grown to know, understand and in some instances love, and move into a more ‘adult’ setting.
However, because our care facilities are designed to provide a homely environment for guests to make their own; our guest has been able to secure a long-term placement – come his 18th birthday, he won’t need to move anywhere, enabling his transition from children’s to adults services, less invasive.
Not only this, our guest has been working with our care team to find out his options for further education. Working with a local college, he has now enrolled onto a music course ‘Higher Rhythm’ where he can explore his love of music, learn new DJ skills and gain a qualification in higher education. He will also attend English and Maths classes to brush up on his skills and fill in some blanks from his earlier years of education.
Working together as one
Care is about the individual – which is why our care teams work together with our guests to design the right method for them.
One member of the team has recently worked with our 17-year old service user to design a range of easy read recipe books, activity starting points, how-to keep your bedroom tidy, how-to use the kitchen appliances and so on.
Using the easy read method, our guests can develop a higher level of independence as they work to understand what they are looking at or what they’re about to do.
At Virtue Health Services we equip individuals with the confidence and skills to develop an identity within their community, make their own decisions and live the best version of their life. With a focus on rehabilitation into a more independent life, we still provide the much-required care and support. So, even if individuals cannot live without some form of care and support, they are still more independent than they perhaps thought achievable.