Cedar Lodge specialises in the care of young adults aged 19 and 30 years and aims to help them develop the skills required to live with support in the community or to prepare them for life in a suitable residential home.

The focus at Cedar Lodge is to ensure each young adult gets to reach their full potential   regardless of the barriers in their way.

This focus has been highlighted by one of the young adults currently living at Cedar Lodge achieving the required level of competency to self-medicate.

It all started back in June when Julia Hawkes, Health and Well-Being Coordinator, discussed with E the possibility of becoming completely independent to administer her own medication. E had previously shown an amazing knowledge and understanding of how her medication worked and what it was used for.

Martin Bradder, SENAD Group Health, Safety and Well Being Manager was asked to support in the initial assessment and to help complete the risk assessments as this was a first for the SENAD Group.

E passed the first stages with flying colours, passing levels E and D to zoom straight in at level C, finally ending up in September with level A. Level A means that E is not only wholly responsible for all her medication, but she is also responsible for reordering, auditing, stock checking, keeping all areas clean, ensuring the safe management of medication and keys and all communications with her prescribers, so you can really start to see what an accomplishment this has been.

With the help and support of the medication officers, E showed enthusiasm, thoroughness in keeping straight and accurate records and the determination to succeed. Although not all plain sailing, the goal was set and E had her eyes set on completing this amazing achievement.

A presentation and celebration of E’s achievement was held on Thursday 22^nd October where E was presented with a certificate of Achievement by Brian Jones, Chief Executive of the SENAD Group.

During our last academic year Rowden House School held a very successful work experience programme. Three of our post sixteen pupils attended work experience once a week for an hour in two local Bromyard businesses and another in Hope under Dinmore.

Dan went to Holden Vintage and Classic, a mail order motoring company at Linton Trading Estate, where he helped in the warehouse. Dan worked closely with the Holden team, who were brilliant with him, showing him how to pick and pack goods to send all over the world. He particularly enjoyed using the paper shredding machine, quickly picking up which buttons and switches to press to create packing material.

Whitegates elderly care home at the top of the Bromyard by-pass, provided Joanna with an opportunity of being part of their care team; she helped clear tables after lunch and made tea and coffee for the residents, who commented that she was always bright and cheerful. Joanna built up some really nice friendships with both staff and residents who looked forward to her Tuesday afternoon visits.

Prometheus Medical at Hope-under-Dinmore saw John absolutely blossom with confidence as he learned lots of new skills. John was made to feel like one of the team and was given his own company uniform and protective clothing. The staff in the stores really went that extra mile in preparing tasks each week to challenge him. John thoroughly enjoyed every moment he spent there, especially when his weekly task involved one of the many company vehicles.

This year will see the addition of two new work experience placements. One at Warren Farm, working in the polytunnels, under the supervision of James and Tor Hawkins and one at Instone Court, collecting and sorting eggs from Simon and Lenny Parker’s beautiful hens.

I would personally like to thank each and every one of you involved in allowing our young people the opportunity of being part of a real working environment. Placements such as these are of enormous value in helping them to develop interpersonal skills and gain more confidence.

If there are any other businesses out there who feel they may be able offer a work experience placement to one of our students then please contact me at Rowden House School.

Susie Bateman

Work Experience Co-ordinator

Email: susanna.bateman@senadgroup.com

Tel: 01885 488096

Website: senadgroup.com/rowdenhouse

Please note – Young people’s names have been changed to protect identity.

Bladon House student, J has successfully completed a 3k Thomas and Friends themed sponsored walk, raising £66.20 for the National Autistic Society. The event, which took part in September, was marshalled by non other than the Fat Controller and was held at Thomas Land, Drayton Manor Theme Park.

Pupils at Aran Hall School in Gwynedd, North Wales have autism, learning disabilities and associated challenging behaviour that can be severe. The pupils sometimes react badly when they are denied access to their preferred activities. Simply saying ‘no’ in the past has led to an escalation in disruptive behaviour, including aggression, shouting and throwing things. So the Principal of the School, Duncan Pritchard, decided to investigate what training would best prepare staff to deal with these situations.

The research was conducted with Bangor University and Nova Southeastern University (USA)

Twenty members of staff took part in the research. They were split into two groups, an experimental group and a control group.

The control group had traditional workshop training alongside the reading and reviewing of behaviour management plans. The experimental group were coached in two verbal responses through ninety minutes of traditional training, a card games and role play session. The role play used thirty scenarios based on real episodes of behaviour that had happened at the school.

The data collected showed that rates of problematic behaviour were lower for the staff who had received the role play training than for staff in the control group; therefore the findings suggested that role play training was more effective than more traditional approaches. Questionnaires completed by staff after the training showed that they felt more confident in managing problem behaviour. Role play training has now become integral as part of the school’s induction programme for all new staff.

Due to copyright we are unable to publish the full research papers. To find out more information about the report please email Duncan Pritchard on duncan.pritchard@senadgroup.com

Students from Bladon House School have been learning to sail at Burton Sailing Club. The six week courses are backed by £500 of Sports Across Staffordshire Sportivate funding.

Over the past two years the sailing club has successfully developed a bespoke scheme for working with children and young people with Special Educational Needs, providing a range of activities where they can safely experience sensory and emotional stimulation and have fun.

The course has significantly helped to develop students communication skills and increase their confidence and independence.

Our wonderful catering team at Pegasus School have achieved a five star rating on their hygiene inspection last week.

The inspector noted that the standards have become much more challenging and she rarely hands out five stars – so well done to Darren, Sheela and Yvonne!!

The SENAD Team are celebrating being granted a NAPPI Centre of Excellence Award after demonstrating that their NAPPI training exceeds the rigorous requirements of the BILD Code.

The SENAD Group have been working with NAPPI for the past three years and now use NAPPI across four of the groups schools and all transition services, adult residential provision and community support services.

What is NAPPI and how does it work?

NAPPI stands for Non Abusive Psychological and Physical Intervention.

It gives us a pro-active approach to promoting positive behaviour. Our aim is to reduce and eliminate the need to use physical intervention wherever possible.

All staff are fully trained in NAPPI. Proactive and preventative approaches are always used in dealing with problematic behaviours, but at the same time we challenge the young people and adults to ensure they are fulfilling their potential. 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.

Using NAPPI all students and residents has a Red, Amber and Green Lalemand scale, which is a holistic behaviour support plan.

The Red scale gives a consistent way of dealing with a resident’s behaviour and clear guidelines on what should and should not be done. We do use specific trained NAPPI physical interventions to ensure people are kept safe. However every intervention, and in fact every incident, is closely monitored by the Registered Manager, as well as the onsite NAPPI trainers. We believe in a transparent approach so all incident records are shared with parents/carers and any other significant person in the person’s life.

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.

Challenging behaviours have a function, to seek or avoid something either sensory, tangible activity or attention. By assessing the functions of behaviour our approaches and responses become more person specific and proactive.

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. The best way to stay safe is to build a strong relationship with those around us. The time to build relationships is when people are doing well; the best way to extend that time is to enrich their life.

For more information about NAPPI please visit nappiuk.com