Summary
Ozzy's One-Ups encourages and supports disabled adults to engage in activities to develop long-term habits to improve their physical and emotional wellbeing and to assist their transition to other Clubs, leisure and recreational activities.
What Ozzy's One Ups did
The first 6 months of our project hit all the planned milestones. From October 2019 through to the March 2020 our project continued to run from our base at Cathcart Old Parish Community Halls on Tuesday evenings. Through this time our members were enjoying a wide range of leisure, sport and physical activities including dance and drama. We went out for walks most evenings and we had a trip out to Soccer World for a fun football session and a game of Adventure Golf.
All was going very well in these first 6 months as we were in the process of working with our services users and their carers to develop and support their transition from youth service leisure activities to adult focused Clubs and other leisure and recreational activities. Our 32 members are all 20+ years and they were looking forward to our Spring and Summer activities which they had planned would have included a cinema and/or bowling trip, a coffee outing and even a trip to our local pub for some food and possibly live music.
From mid-February through March 2020 The Saturday Cafe Clubs were on high alert due to the possible threat from the Coronavirus and we had begun to look at alternative ways of delivering our service. We increased our hygiene regime and split our Ozzy's One-Ups group over 3 rooms - with 10 /12 members in each activity space. At this time we had also increased our hygiene and from mid-March we had stopped any snack preparation or bringing food stuff to Club moving snack to fresh fruit (individual) only.
But sadly this was not enough and on the 24th of March 2020 due to COVID-19 we went into lockdown with the rest of Scotland.
After a 10 week closure and the development of our Back-to-Business plan which included new access & egress processes and enhanced hygiene we were delighted to open up our service on the 1st June 2020, but at this junction (with advice from Care Inspectorate) we had to reduce the number of service users attending Ozzy's One-Ups to 10 members per session - to overcome disappointment we moved the service to 2 half-days mid-week and a Sunday morning. This increased costs, but service users were delighted to be able to return to Club.
What The Saturday Cafe Clubs SCIO has learned
This has been a year of continuous adapting and learning and learning some more. We considered our approach to delivering the project was very flexible to ensure we continue to meet the needs of all our carers and cared-for adults. It has been therefore really challenging to become less flexible and have strict guidance in place for our carers and cared-for to meet the COVID-19 guidance. As with many other projects budget became a concern too as we had to find a way to be able to re-start our service in June yet with reduced number and still be able to support all carers and cared-for. Fortunately we were able to utilise furlough for our staff and we were then also able to utilise the 10 week closedown project budget to offer additional sessions. We were also able to source other funding some of which we could contribute to this project. We had planned for 2021 to seek other funders across the services we deliver, but this has been a really challenging year and we have had to spend much of our time developing new polices and procedures and e-aligning service provision just to be able to stand-still. We will review our funding strategy for 2022. I would like to finish on a really positive note - out of the COVID-19 mist we found with smaller groups that we could spend much more quality time with each individual adult service users and our email correspondence with our carers improved - both of which were unexpected and unplanned outcomes.
How The Saturday Cafe Clubs SCIO has benefitted from the funding
Funding has been more appreciated this year than in all the previous years - that is the opinion of our carers and cared-for. Being in a position to re-open our service as early as June was greatly appreciated by all our service users. Lifeline was a word we heard so often from our carers as most (if not all) of other services that their cared-for adult had used pre-COVID were not reopening. As explained earlier we also had the opportunity to refocus the fund from Creative Breaks which enabled us to deliver a Sunday morning Ozzy's One-Ups. In a very odd way COVID-19 also pushed us towards new skills in IT - utilising ZOOM, Teams and making better use of our online learning platform 'Citation'.
Project Outcomes
Outcome
60 carers of adults with disabilities aged 20 years plus will have improved access to peer support and social activities to assist them to share achievements, discuss challenges and meet new friends / peers
Results
This outcome was somewhat achieved in that we were able to have 2 social gatherings with our carers over the period October 2019 - February 2020. From March 2020 through to June 2020 our project was closed due to the COVID-19 lockdown. From when we re-opened our service to date we have been unable to meet in groups with our carers or support our carers to meet in groups independently from the Club. This period has been very challenging and carers report that they are grateful that their cared-for adult is back at Ozzy's One-Ups and they have some respite time to reenergise and catch up with some general daily activities - especially those carers who also provide care to elderly relatives or other family members. Despite this we recognise that we have not been able to fulfil our objective of providing carers themselves with information or support to enter into their own chosen leisure time activities as in the main leisure services themselves have been closed.
Case study
Carer M - mother of 2 disabled young women aged 25 and 21 years (M is a Board Trustee) and Carer C - mother of K a disabled young women aged 22 (C is a member of our Advisory Group) met with our management team during the lockdown period as they were very concerned about the isolation their daughters were facing over the lockdown period and about their own health and wellbeing as they were not able to access any short-breaks (respite) as all services they used including college and day-centres were closed. Both women are active members of Club and were very aware of the ongoing challenges and restrictions relating to COVID-19 and were concerned about the health and wellbeing of other carers and those they cared for. Through conversations with the Care Inspectorate and these 2 carers we developed a plan to move our Tuesday evening Ozzy's One-Ups sessions to 2 mid-week sessions and a Sunday morning session enabling all our Ozzy's One-Ups members to access at least one half-day session per week.
Outcome
30 adults with disabilities aged 20 years plus and 60 carers of the group will have participated in a range of activities to improve their physical and emotional wellbeing, attaining a minimum of 3 personal activity participation goals
Results
In the main in the first 5 months of the project carers and cared-for adults were able to develop and work towards their personal activity participation goals. Cared-for adults participation goals were developed by December 2019 and all our adult service users were happily working towards achieving these by February 2020. In March 2020 COVID-19 interrupted their progress and the were not so easily picked up again when we returned to the project in June 2020 due to the many changes we had tomato to keep the project and members safe. We did intend to revisit our individual goals in October 2020, but unfortunately due to the intense hygiene practices and the number of sessions we need to deliver just to enable all our cared-for adults to attend Club it has not been possible to free staff up to complete this task. However, we are confident that our service users are continuing to being supported to engage in safe, fun activities that promote health and wellbeing,
Case study
R is a 19 year old disabled young women who we supported to transition early from our youth service provision to our Ozzy's One-Ups project. R was struggling to stay focused at the youth club as 2 of her best friends were now attending the adult services project. By early November 2019 R's carer was struggling to have R continue to come to Club therefore reducing the carers short-break time by 3 hours per week. A time this carer reported she really needed. In November R was invited along to Ozzy's One-Ups and immediately her attitude to coming to Club changed. R was again immediately enthusiastic about coming out on a Tuesday evening and meeting up with her friends. She again participated in all the activities - at home R was talking enthusiastically again about Club and meeting her friends and most of all singing Karaoke.
Outcome
60 carers of adults with disabilities aged 20 years plus will have a minimum of 3 hours additional short break time free from their role of carer
Results
This outcome was in the main achieve with the exception of a 10 week period over the COVID-19 lockdown 24th March 2020 - 31st May 2020. From 1st June 2020 through to and including Sunday 9th August we operated 3 sessions per week (2 mid-week sessions and a Sunday morning session) to enable us to ensure that all carers would receive a minimum of 3 hours service. From Tuesday 11th August we resumed our Tuesday night session and we continue to date to deliver this session and our Sunday AM session meaning we are continuing to provide all our carers with 3 hours minimum short-break from their caring role.
Case study
G is 20 year old young man who was new to the project in October 2019. His family situation has been challenging and he had not settled in his new day care activities. G was orientated to Club via his social worker as his carer was struggling to find any regular short-breaks from his caring role and was feeling very stressed about his own wellbeing. G took some time to settle into the project and unfortunately just as his carer was beginning to see some improvement in G COVID-19 struck and we went into lockdown. G's carer reported that he was finding things at home very challenging and the respite he was receiving was very limited and irregular during our closure period. G's carer felt both he and G needed consistency more than ever to help them both settle into a new routine. After discussing matters further with G and his carer and with some input from Social Work it was agreed that G would attend the Sunday morning session. G has been back at Club since 7th June and his carer has reported that the Sunday morning Club is a great success with G and he feels he has some time himself to reenergise.G'scarer also hopes that moving forward (when we are COVID free) that he may even join the gym or a Sunday morning football league.