www.mcch.org.uk
newsletter for mcch staff
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Spring issue 14
Are you looking for your next challenge? We need cyclists for the London to Brighton cycle ride on 7 September. Contact Emma Cassley, Fundraising Manager: 01622 722536 e.cassley@mcch.org.uk Picture: Richard Webb Executive Director of Housing and Development
Peter Thompson Chief Executive
Welcome The bulletin for staff has got a new look. It is now written in plain English without jargon. The new layout also makes it clearer for people to read. We are already off to a great start this year. Below is some of the good work so far. • We were given money from the Santander Foundation to buy iPads for 25 services.
mcch is now a charity
• We were chosen as a finalist for 3 awards.
Do you know what an ‘industrial and provident society with charitable status’ is? Many people do not!
• We won the contract for children’s services in Bexley.
We have now changed to a registered charity and our number is 1156486.
• The new Carlton Resource Centre opened.
We are also no longer called mcch society limited, we are known as mcch.
• The new ‘ubenefit’ website was launched. Read more on page 5. We have a new Business Plan and a summary is enclosed. Please read and share with your team. It is also on the intranet under mcch strategies (in the blue tab at the top). We hope you like the new newsletter for staff. We have other versions for people we support and members of the public: • Easy read: with pictures and simple text • Mental health: mental health stories • General: with stories from across mcch • Video: for people who cannot read. Regards Peter
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mcch society limited r mcch a mcch: to bold or not to bold, that is the question! You no longer have to bold mcch within your documents. This makes the text difficult to read and it is time consuming for you to do!
mcch r mcch a We can bold mcch if we need it to stand out, such as in adverts or signage.
mcch’s new vision, values and standards are helping to improve the quality of our services
Improving quality:
using our standards David Hall
Executive Director of People and Performance
Changes to the way we work. In 2013 we created a new vision, mission, values and set of standards. We are changing the way we work, to reflect this. These are just some of the things we will be changing this year:
Social Care Commitment • We will recruit staff who care and give them a good induction • We will help staff develop their skills and supervise them properly
• Appraisal (read more on page 4)
• We will make sure staff understand safety and quality standards
• We have recruited 4 people we support who are employed as quality checkers
• Staff will work responsibly and respect people’s dignity
• Questions asked during job interviews will be based around our new values
• Staff will work together and continue to learn
• We will write a new ‘managing attendance’ policy and guidelines for managers
• Staff will protect privacy and treat people fairly.
• We will develop a ‘basic IT’ skills guide • We will have standards for each property we manage.
New charter marks We have signed up to 4 charters to show our commitment to staff and people we support: • Social Care Commitment • Driving up Quality • Health Charter • Making it Real.
find out more about these on the intranet in **your guide to mcch**
Driving up Quality • Our quality of services will be better than minimum standards • We will show what is good practice and tell people what is bad practice • We will be open and honest, and share our good work with others • We will have services based on high quality and our values.
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Keep learning and developing Gemma Sharp Learning and Development Manager We are writing a new strategy for learning and development. It will give us a better way to support you in your career at mcch.
Our plan for supporting you in your current role is to: • Develop ‘role based’ training for all roles: • We will find out what training you need to do your job • If your job needs training that we do not currently provide, we will work together to find a solution. • Give you more opportunities to develop yourself: • This may include being a trainer or assessing QCF diplomas (contact us if you are interested in any of these!) • We will be looking at training to develop coaches and mentors.
New appraisals We are looking at a new way of doing staff appraisals. How do you want the new appraisal to work? If you want to help us, contact me. Gemma Sharp t. 01622 722408
mcch’s National Learning at Work day Wednesday 21 May 10am - 4pm Hermitage Court in Maidstone
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m. 07894 586881 g.sharp@mcch.org.uk
Safeguarding information Terry Wills Corporate Safeguarding Specialist mcch good practice on Mencap’s website. Mencap has written a document called “Whistleblowing Guidance for Workers and Employers in Health and Social Care”. On page 27 there is an example of good practice from mcch. This is on their new whistleblowing helpline website. http://www.wbhelpline. org.uk/wp-content/ uploads/2014/02/ Raising-Concerns-atWork.pdf
Training run by mcch saves money and helps us to meet our standards • Costs for running the course have reduced by over 50% • We can now train 55 more staff each month • All staff are able to do their refresher training every year • All new staff do the safeguarding training during their induction week.
Training to be accredited We have applied to the National Skills Academy for Social Care to endorse our safeguarding training.
ubenefit discounts Staff can now access 100s of discounts from retailers such as Asda, Homebase and Apple. Go to www.ubenefit.org.uk and type in your: • username (mcch + first name + last name - eg mcchjohnsmith) • password (first login will be mcch - you will be asked to change this).
At pay day, I top up my reloadable Sainsbury’s gift card. It gives me 5% off my groceries. This will save me over £150 a year. Karen Mitchell
www.ubenefit.org.uk
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Stories in brief New centre opens We have worked with the London Borough of Bexley to replace the Calrton centre. “I like this new centre, especially the domestic room as I love cooking. The old place was old and tatty!” Lara “The new centre is brilliant and it is so spacious. I like coming here.” Caroline The old centre is being demolished, to make way for new housing.
Central services team days The Fundraising, Marketing and Projects team spent their team away day doing a garden makeover in Gravesend. The team was helped by volunteers, staff at Hermitage, support staff and a tenant. They built a vegetable patch, borders, painted the shed and tidied the garden. The Housing team also did a garden makeover at South Canterbury Road. They laid turf, built planters, painted benches and sheds, and laid a patio. The residents were so pleased with the transformation.
We are finalists The Holly Lodge development in Kent is shortlisted for the National Learning Disability and Autism awards in May. The Holly Lodge team was also a finalist at the Laing and Buisson Independent Specialist Care awards. Kerry Turner, senior operations manager, was also a finalist at these awards for the mental health specialists project.
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Storysharing helps people we support to create accessible stories about themselves so that they can share with other people.
Storysharing ideas Dr Nicola Grove
Chair of Openstorytellers Sharing stories is something that people who do not have disabilities do all the time. But many of the people we support find this hard. This might be because they don’t remember well, or can’t communicate their experiences, or don’t have the photos and objects to hand which help them. And sometimes it is because there is so little time to listen! Staff have been working with people they support to collect photos and objects from their lives, and to find the stories that go with them. There are lots of different ways of doing this: • a “this is my life” newspaper
This is what the staff say It helps the staff to know the person more. If you don’t know someone’s past, you don’t really know them.
• a box of objects and photos about interests and achievements, likes and dislikes • photo stories on an iPad with captions and “voiceovers” • make an “All about Me” box. People who don’t talk can press buttons to hear a recorded message or a sound that means something to them. They can touch and feel objects while staff tell their story.
It’s made us think about ways of presenting information so that people supported can understand it.
Staff can see the benefits - it’s not just writing information in the diary, it’s finding creative ways of recording what has happened.
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Gardening competition Are you proud of what you have done to your garden? Do the people you support love it? We want to celebrate great gardens and reward good gardeners. You have until the end of July to turn your garden into something inspiring.
Free compost bin for all entrants. Enter your garden or outside space into the mcch gardening competition. Your service could win ÂŁ500 to help transform the service.
Nicola Bowen Head of Tenancy Services t. 01622 722482
To enter, contact Nicola Bowen by Friday 16 May.
n.bowen@mcch.org.uk
Top tip to keep you green Check the weather, then check your heating. Do you really need the radiators on all day? Turn down the thermostat or turn off the heating. If the heating is on, close the windows!
mcch One Hermitage Court Hermitage Lane Maidstone Kent ME16 9NT t. 01622 722400 f. 01622 722450 www.mcch.org.uk twitter.com/mcchcharity facebook.com/mcchcharity mcch is a registered charity number 1156486 and a company limited by guarantee (registered in England and Wales number 8971493).
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