Our supported living care services provide any type of assistance someone with complex needs might need to live independently and safely in their own home or supported living accommodation. There’s a vast range of tasks our carers can help with.
This kind of care generally involves support with domestic, day to day tasks, but may include some personal care also, if needed. Our carers can help with all kinds of aspects of everyday life: shopping, laundry, opening the post, tidying and cleaning. Support going out into the community might also be needed and we can help with that too.
Because this type of care is so varied, it needs to be tailored to each individual’s requirements and exactly the right carer is needed to match someone’s specific needs. We work closely with our client, their family and our client’s social workers, who will already know the person very well, to make sure we have the best plan in place. Having assessed the duties and skills needed, we’ll do what we call a skill match where the client is paired with the most suitable carer for their needs, meaning they’ll get the very best outcomes from their supported living care.
Who Might Need Supported Living Care?
The people we help with supported living care tend to have complex needs but are, more often than not, physically able. We work with people who have autism, Aspergers, Down Syndrome, learning disabilities and mental health illnesses. Our clients are able to do a lot for themselves around the home but need extra support to ensure they are living safely and to help them live independently. We can provide support to people of any age, but primarily our clients are young adults who want to live an independent life and find that supported living is a better option for them than residential care.
What do Supported Living Carers Do?
Supported living is all about helping someone to live as independently as possible, giving them choice and freedom, and helping them to thrive and develop as a person. Visits can tend to be quite long, usually between two and four hours, meaning the carer can get through lots of tasks with their client. A carer will visit at least daily, sometimes more than once everyday, depending on the person’s needs.
Supported living care generally covers day to day tasks, but can include help with anything that the client might want to do. Some typical examples are:
- Opening and sorting post
- Cooking together
- Support with healthy eating
- Help with shopping and budgeting
- Visiting the bank
- Going out into the community to libraries, sports centres or social events, for example
- Learning new skills
- Help applying for jobs
- Preventing safety hazards within the home (making sure taps are always turned off etc.)
- Support with any medication
Benefits of Supported Living Care
Essentially, supported living care prevents people with complex needs from having to move into potentially restrictive residential accommodation and allows them the freedom and independence to live alone, in their own space. With the extra help that supported living care provides, clients are free to make their own choices about their lives which, in turn, helps them grow in confidence. People often strike up a friendship with their carer too.
At the heart of supported living is the person themselves, but there are huge benefits for family and loved ones too. Knowing your relative is being supported in living their life to the full is incredibly reassuring, but there’s also peace of mind from a safety point to consider too. Knowing someone’s there to check whether the oven’s been switched off after dinner or that all the doors are locked before leaving the house is often a great comfort to relatives, in particular parents of those in supported living.
For further information on our supported living care options, call us on 01926 431925.