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The 'support' (aka staffing) element of our supported housing services is funded by the Supporting People Programme, which provides housing related support to vulnerable people to help them live more independently and maintain their tenancies.
The key objectives within the service provision are all aimed at delivering quality needs led services and as such those services funded within this programme are subject to comprehensive three yearly reviews.
Cranstoun’s South London Supported Housing currently provides four supported housing services, accommodating 33 clients. These services basically provide support and housing for people who are leaving community, residential and prison treatment services and making the journey to independent living. So, in essence; we bridge the gap (and do an awful lot more besides). Supported housing is now subject to the same tendering processes we have become familiar with in our other services. Reviews are always a time for anxiety and uncertainty about the future, we also knew that this SP review was undoubtedly an important and significant event for the future of CDS supported housing per se.
Part of the process for the review is a self assessment against the standards within the Quality Assessment Framework (QAF), which cover seven core objectives, graded A-D. These are:
Needs & Risk Assessment
Support Planning
Health & Safety
Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults
Fair Access, inclusion and Diversity
Complaints
Service User Involvement
This initial assessment is followed up by a validation visit from the supporting people team and a service user representative from another service, who then interview the managers, staff team and service users, as well as check all the relevant files, policies and other evidence which supports our grading.
The review took place at our Project 85 service at the end of March and most of our current residents attended together with many ex-residents returning to share in what became a very up-beat and friendly day. It was great to see people who had been through the services return to support us in this process which really brought home how much people have valued their experiences with us over the years.For me, personally, the day was a ‘nervy’ experience although I felt confident that we would do well. After the interviews were over, we were able to relax a bit and enjoy the day more, with a great lunch, cooked by an ex resident (who trained as a chef whilst in the services) and with loads of service users turning up it all got very busy.
Eventually the day drew to a close and the moment of truth was upon us. Finally the verdict was to be revealed - ‘was the last three years of hard work going to pay off? Would we achieve an improvement on the previous outcomes? Since a previous review we have been working hard at improving the culture within the services, changing the structure of the services to better meet service users needs, making improvements in service provision and enhancing how this is delivered. I can honestly say the results from the review not only validated the efforts made but exceeded our own assessment and expectations, by being provisionally graded at five A’s and two B’s. What this means is that we far exceed the quality bar for tender, and moreover our services may well be used to inform the specification in this process.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank all that have embraced the challenge over the years and the importance of the review not only for us locally but also for the good name of Cranstoun Drug Services, and last but not least the people that truly need our final helping-hand and support to complete their journey.
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