Here at Pro Support, we help people make the transition from restricted environments to, where possible, more independent living. We work with a wide range of people with severe or long term mental health issues, including those who:

• Are moving from secure or restricted services or hospitals
• Have been sectioned under the Mental Health Act
• Have forensic backgrounds
• Have a community treatment order (CTO) in place
• Are on probation order
• Are on Ministry of Justice order and working with Mentally Disordered Offenders service

Everyone’s recovery journey is different. We help people find the right place for them to start and focus on giving people the skills and confidence they need for this journey. We help each client identify and work toward meaningful goals which will result in a happier, healthier and more fulfilling future.

We believe that effective partnerships are important for our success – whether they be with the people who use our services, or with organisations such as the NHS and social services. We take the time to develop a shared understanding of the goals we are working towards and stay focused on the things that will make a real difference.

We also know that education and employment are essential to long term recovery as they not only improve self-esteem, but represent a significant step towards independence. We support those we work with to learning essential skills, attend college.

Pro Support provides individuals with mental health and learning disabilities with forensic backgrounds and complex behaviours on various orders. We provides intensive person centred and specialist intervention with robust risk management plans. This enables service users to live within the community without putting themselves or others at risk. This support is delivered in our supported living services with individualised support packages.

Pro Support service manager is an experience social worker, specialising in forensic mental health and knows what to must be included in a resettlement plan.

As part of the referral process, we would expect a detailed risks assessment, which clearly outlines the risk presented by the service user, as well as those that the service user may be subjected to whilst living in the community. We know that some service users attract extensive media attention and community rejection, which in some cases are triggers that may cause the service user to reoffend. We will therefore, ensure that all information concerning triggers, signs of relapse to look for and how to manage the presenting risks for each service user.

In addition, we would request robust and detailed care plan, with clinical summary, including details of any psychological assessment/input the client may have or require. This would also be supported by any occupational report with rehabilitation plans, linked to the individual service user’s care and support.

Fundamental to the information we would require include, details of any Ministry of Justice conditions; for example restrictions as to where a client can and cannot go, specific exclusion zones for the service user, including activities requiring escorted support; also, information related to contact with victims, child protection and general safeguarding.

Accompanying the client’s referral application must also be a detailed recall plan in case the client relapse or reoffends and needs to be readmitted to hospital etc.

Key to the information required is the details of professionals involved specifically with the care and support of the client. This would include probation service, Police, details of the social supervisor and schedule of the frequency when the client would be visited. We would also expect contact details of the client’s responsible clinician and copy of his treatment plan.

We offer a wide range of supported living services. These are shared houses of 3-5 bedrooms with communal facilities. We support vulnerable individuals suffering from and living with a learning disability, mental health and associated needs including those with forensic histories.

In our supported living services housing and support are separate. This means that service users have tenancy agreements with the landlord or managing agent and support agreements with Pro Support. Service users are eligible for more benefits and have more money than if they lived in residential care services. Our supported living services don’t have as many rules and regulations as residential care homes.

At Pro Support services, the individual is at the centre of the support planning process. Individual service user will have a key worker who will support them to determine their desired goals, aspirations and outcomes and ways to achieve them. The support plan will be a working tool to help the service user map their journey travelled through the recovery plan. The STAR delivery program is a key support delivery strategy negotiated with service users across our services.

It puts individuals at the centre of the process of identifying their needs, desired path to achieve set goals and making choices about what, who and how they are supported along the way. Pro Support sees this as an opportunity to provide services that are appropriate, creative and flexible. It focuses on personal strengths and preferences; it promotes choice and control and ultimately enables self-confidence and personal well-being for service users.

Our holistic person centered approach promotes:

• Listening to the individual service users
• Attending to the details
• Open, honest, consistence and sensitive approach to individual situations
• Identifying and support what really matters to the person
• Positive risk taking towards building life skills to live independently in future tenancies, also to achieving personal dreams and desires
• Our flexible service is designed to reflect changes in individual circumstances

We liaise with professionals such as care coordinators, consultants, advocates, benefits officers and family members to ensure that the service user live a meaningful life, whilst managing risk along the journey to self-determined life and independence.

Pro Support ensures that our support staff receive the training and support necessary to deliver the service required and agree flexible working contract to respond to individual service users when, where, how and what support they need. We actively use information that our service users and frontline staff provide to develop strategies and tools to enhance and develop relevant personalised system of work across our services. The management team has considerable experience providing a wide range of flexible staffing and support models to ensure that the needs of individual service users are met. Our staff are available 24hr a day including evenings, weekends and bank holidays

In this context we believe that person centred approaches involve a wide range of tools, modifications and changes that our teams are able to develop and use to make our services more inclusive of the people we support. To deliver a service that is flexible and specific to each person we:

• Involve service users throughout, ensure that they understand the process and follow up
• Be aware of power dynamics in terms of how service users view their role and to always seek to empower
• Respect the person, their home and their beliefs
• Regard individual circumstance, age, gender, religion, culture, sexuality and other differences
• Involve others should the service user wish (including advocacy services, relatives)
• Remain non judgmental

We also ensure that outcome measurement is inbuilt into support plans. We use STAR recovery modal to plan, deliver and monitor support provided. By following the STAR recovery model, we ensure meaningful delivery approaches that pay more than lip service to current thinking around personalised support; as a support organisation, we help individuals to map the journey travelled and ensure

At Pro Support, we provide Short term respite, enablement and recovery services that meet the needs of the individuals and those of the whole family.

We respond to crisis and short term referrals, carry out assessment and develop appropriate service for a services and their families. This service is home based and flexible around the needs of the service user. The support service is owned by the customer who tells us how, where and when the support is needed. Support includes attending college, daily living and social networking.

Not only is the service of benefit to the service user, but also to the entire family, who benefits from the respite service provided by Pro Support’s visiting support and accommodation based respite service.

Floating support is the term we use when we support people for a part of their time to do specific things, such as going shopping, attending college or managing money. Often, people who receive floating support live on their own, or with families or partners.

Our Outreach Floating Support Service will provide a range of support to people who are experiencing a variety of support needs. The service aims to improve the quality of life for each individual, minimise tenancy difficulties and related / consequential social problems, give people the opportunity to maximise their independence, increase their involvement in all the decisions surrounding their lives, provide a flexible service that responds to variable support needs and develop positive working relationships with other agencies.

Pro Support is registered with CQC to provide domiciliary care service. At Pro Support, our focus is to offer our service users choices and control in the care and facilities that we currently provide. Our vision is for the service users to achieve independence and to be successful in helping those in supported living to move into independent living accommodation. We aim to empower service users with life skills to enable them to live independently in future tenancies.

Our staff are trained to understand the varied impacts of mental illness on individual service users and therefore are able to offer appropriate support based on individual needs. All our care/support plans are outcome focused, to equip and empower service users with the life skills for independent living.

We have extensive experience working with individuals who have been deemed as challenging. We take pride in the fact that we have reduced readmission rates for our service users. In our supported living services, service users will hold their own tenancies and our 24hr staff will help them maintain these. They have control of their day to day affairs, including setting goals along their recovery pathway.

By offering a broad spectrum of support and care, we are able to offer clients with Challenging Needs, including forensic backgrounds, a flexible support pathway and purchasers a choice of support provision, all of which provide opportunities to increase independence.

At Pro Support, we believe in and are committed to independent living, and that’s why we let people take control of their own life recovery journey, also their support and care program.

We believe that our service users are experts by experience, so we ensure we have good effective communication with service users by listening to them and use feedback in the development plans for the service. We also ensure service users have the right information to help them make informed choice about living independently in the community. All staff receive training on how to communicate effectively with service users, which include giving a service user some information and clarifying that they have understood the information given; also the information is relevant to promote the service user’s goals and aspiration.

We seek service users’ views through face to face meetings, group meetings and through quality audit questionnaires. We also listen to service users’ relatives, to gain their views on the service; what’s working, where improvement can be made and the desired outcomes for their relatives.

Our experience is that good communication is effective in ensuring particular needs of service users are met. For example, cultural and religious needs; how a person’s normal diet might fit with a recommended diet; how to take/ support with taking medication and gender specific related issues.

Access to written information is also vital, so Pro Support provides information to service users in easy read plain language, without jargons when writing to service users. We believe that information must be accessible to all service users in a format that they can understand. That is why we use easy read language, without jargons when writing to service users.

We encourage and ensure service users have independent advocacy, to represent their interest and ensure effective communication, empower service users and provide valuable contextual information to service users, staff and professionals working with them. We also employ specialist staff with BSL training, who can advocate and communicate with deaf service user.

We have specialist knowledge of supporting services and their families in transition from children to adult services. Preparation for adulthood and leaving care should not be a one off event, but a process that supports young people to make a successful transition to independence. Pro Support offer support services that help and support individuals prepare for their adult life.   Young people making the transition from care must be gradually prepared for adulthood by giving them the practical, social and emotional skills and opportunities for a successful life. Pro Support offer a safety net during their journey through our 24 hour shared support projects. At Pro Support we believe that good support and planning for the future when a young person is in our care is the basis for good support when they leave. Local authorities as corporate parents have a statutory duty to help young people to achieve in care and continue to support the care leavers they looked after as children. Pro Support work closely with the statutory agencies to ensure the care and support we deliver meets the individuals needs and prepares them to secure suitable and permanent move on accommodation and support if necessary.

We believe that it is essential to place young people at the centre of service planning and development. Young people in our care are given opportunities to actively engage with the broader community.

For participation to be empowering it must move beyond consultations and commenting on policies and procedures. Our involvement and activities seek to take young people on a journey, by developing transferrable skills and fostering individual development rather than just eliciting opinion. Only through the learning experience and our support can young people develop the skills to critically reflect and engage with the services and society they are a part of.

24 Hours home care is a modern full-time care solution that allows you or your loved one to stay at home in familiar, relaxed surroundings with a comfortable routine. There is none of the disruption or confusion that often comes with a move to a new unfamiliar environment and the level of care and support is incomparable. For those that value their independence, that want to stay behind their own front door and not have to leave their cherished home or pets, Live-in Care is the perfect solution. A fully trained Live-in Carer lives in the home and provides bespoke one-to-one full time care and companionship, following an agreed support plan that is personalised to the individual.

The costs of Live-in Care are comparable to many nursing or care homes; a financial advantage of Live-in Care is that, unlike the cost of a Care home, the cost of one-to-one in home care can be offset against the capital appreciation of the property which remains a viable asset. Families who entrust their loved ones to Live-in Care from Pro Support rest easy with the peace of mind that someone is always on hand; that someone is providing care, companionship and taking care of household chores.

The carer will sleep in their own room at the house and follow a bespoke support plan created specifically for their client. They are on hand to help with personal care such as toileting, bathing or overseeing medication or mobility; they keep up with the housekeeping chores such as cooking, cleaning, laundry and shopping. And often of greatest importance, they spend quality time with their companion, chatting and keeping them company.

When you put all this together it means that when family comes to visit, they don’t have to worry about going to the shops, cleaning the house or making sure that medication has been taken.

The family can visit or call whenever they want and spend quality time with each other, enjoying one another’s company knowing that their loved one is in the best possible place and in the best possible hands.