Activity Planning for Inclusion: The Somerset Approach

ABSTRACT

Activity planning was introduced in somersault in 2004, to support modernising day services. We called it My Day. It is a make for care staff to make secure they support people with learning disabilities to engage in everyday activities the one and the other at home and in the wider community, and a way to arrange individualised daily household tasks, personal self-care, hobbies, social arrangements and other activities with family with learning disabilities. A recording proces is integral to My Day to enable statistical turn backs to be produced that inform service delivery at the point of delivery. Its main intent is to ensure that race with learning disabilities remain at the midst of daily activity planning and that their wishes and aspirations are recognised. My Day is single of the ways in which consequences can be measured for tribe with learning disabilities in somersault

INTRODUCTION

Participation is a large part of what we think of as quality of life, and should be central to the value base of our care staff, enabling them to support race with learning disabilities to lead fulfilling lives. In 2001 the Valuing clan fulfilling lives agenda (DoH, 2001) required local authorities to:

enable family with learning disabilities to lead replete and purposeful lives within their community and to make known a range of friendships, activities and relationships.

The somersault approach reflects this, as well as the Government's wish to diocese greater emphasis on individualised and flexible services that place tribe with learning disabilities within their local communities. Somerset's modernising day services strategy,Towards Choice and Inclusion (Dick, 2003) determined that the extremitys of people living in 24-hour staffed accommodation (residential or supported living) would be better met not by means of traditional day service provision, on the other hand by an individualised person-centred approach. Research was undertaken through a multi-disciplinary steering group, involving input from a clinical psychologist, to identify examples of beneficial practice in day service provision. This l us to consider the work of the Welsh middle for Learning Disabilities Applied Research Unit (Jone et al, 1996) This paper describes the type developed in Somerset (incorporating the work of Jone and colleagues) for activity planning for inclusion, where clan living in our 24-hour staffed accommodation ceased attending traditional day services (such as larger congregate day centres) and now participate in daytime and evening activities arranged within or from their domicile supported by residential or supported living staff. This protoplast is known as My Day.

WHAT IS MY DAY?

My Day is a system:

* to help planning and organisation of daytime, evening and week-end activities

* that incorporates monitoring of individuals' horizontal of participation over time

* where staff record the amount of time they disburse with individual service users upon identified activities.

The etho of somersault Learning Disability Services is built upon the principles set out in the Valuing race White Paper: rights, independence, choice and inclusion. My Day makes a contribution to the delivery of these principles - as do many other initiatives.

The main principles underlying My Day are to make sure that service users, with staff support:

* have greater choice and superintendence over their lives

* are treated as individuals

* are given status and look up to

* are involved in the running of their domicile

* are involved in their community

* have a network of relationships involving family and friends

* have continuity in relationships

* have opportunities to disentangle experience and competence.

The My Day combination of parts to form a whole provides structure for care staff, to render certain that they support people with learning disabilities to engage in everyday activities, the one and the other in their home and in the wider community, where possible in non-segregated settings. It provides a way to arrange individualised daily household tasks, personal self-care, hobbies, social arrangements and other activities, and gives clan with learning disabilities the opportunity to pick who will provide support for their individualised activities identified upon their My Day plan. It helps to establish which are:

* the essential daily tasks (DT) like bathing, washing, preparing provisions

* the desirable activities (options), of that kind as gardening, swimming, shopping, attending cudgels

* self-directed activities (SDA), time that individuals pick out to spend on activities, initiated either by the agency of themselves or by staff, on the contrary chosen to undertake alone, of the like kind as watching TV or going to association

It is not recorded if service users pitch upon to sit quietly without any interaction.

What My Day doesn't do

The final cause of My Day is not to provide a record of each minute of activity that service users are engaged in, each day. The plan assumes that service users like their possess space and enjoy unstructured time. Although this must not be used as an excuse for drawn out periods of inactivity, staff should acknowledge the individuality of each service user and make sure that plans reflect individual selections for solitude and engagement.To avoid protracted periods of inactivity, one of the successe of positive engagement is a thoughtfully unraveled regularly reviewed and evolving list of options drawn up by means of staff who know the service user well. This provides staff with a list of activities that would be greatest in quantity likely to motivate the service user to become engaged.