The main ethos driving the learning provision at OneNineFive is meeting the young adult’s individual needs to enable them to reach their full potential and move on to live as independently as possible. Each young adult has an Individual Learning Programme (ILP). Learning is tailored to each individuals needs and progress is tracked and evidenced through ongoing assessment. Carefully and holistically devised learning, care and health outcome plans aim to foster a sense of self-worth whilst focussing on the key areas of learning. We recognise the important role that the family have already played in the early care and education of their child and work closely with parents to provide appropriate learning, care and therapy for their child. Parental involvement is an important part of our work and we hope that they will want to participate in their child’s transition to adulthood.

Many of our young adults have specific communication needs. Our Key Workers work with our local Speech and Language Therapist to write an individual communication passport. The communication passport ensures the young adult is cared for in a nurturing and consistent way. Speech and Language Therapists assess how each young adult communicates and create a formal communication system to meet their needs. This could be a Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) for requesting things they would like or need, and a visual system to help young people understand and be prepared for what is happening during the day. They also work with young adults on the skills they need to access learning and to function successfully in society. This includes giving them the motivation and confidence to communicate and the ability to generalise their skills in new settings and environments.

Our young adults are diagnosed with varying disabilities; they have significant differences in cognitive ability and communicate in different ways. All young people referred to OneNineFive display some challenging behaviour. This is our specialism and is what is at the centre of everything we do. All forms of behaviour are seen as some form of communication. As a team of specialists we aim to give the young adult a more appropriate way of communicating. All the apartments use a positive approach to promote positive behaviour. Our physical intervention technique is called NAPPI (non-abusive physical and psychological intervention). Our aim is to reduce and eliminate the need to use physical intervention wherever possible. NAPPI helps us to develop approaches to manage challenging behaviour in a reactive way to keep the individual and others safe from immediate harm. It also helps us to manage the positive aspects of a person’s life and reduce challenging behaviours by providing enrichment across three main categories; Caring Community, Productivity and High Quality Relaxation. All young people have a Red, Amber and Green Lalemand scale, which is an holistic behaviour support plan. The Red scale gives a consistent way of dealing with a young person’s behaviour and clear guidelines on what should and should not be done. The Amber scale focuses on the person’s stress factors, those factors of an individual’s life that can cause them to move towards challenging behaviour. By recognising and understanding these, we are able to support the individual to manage stress in a more positive way. The Green scale focuses on those areas that make a person’s life worth living. By providing meaningful activities, we can enrich a person’s life and build their self-esteem.

As the role of OneNinefive is to prepare young adults placed with us to go on to live with support in the community or prepare them for life in a suitable residential home, we support young adults to live, socialise and form positive relationships with others. We do this by offering opportunities to socialise and form positive relationships and develop relationships with other young people at OneNine five, as well as encouraging and supporting young adults to engage in as many community activities as possible.

We have excellent links with the local GP practice, dentist and opticians in the local town. All young adults are registered with the local GP practice, dentist and opticians. Young adults are supported to attend appointments, make decisions on their own well-being and healthy living style, with appropriate levels of support from staff. In addition we have input from a variety of professions including psychiatry and psychotherapy.