Summary
Ozzy's One-Ups encourages and supports adults with complex additional support needs to engage in activities to develop long-term habits that support and improve their physical and emotional wellbeing and assist their transition to other leisure and recreational Clubs, activities and events.
What Ozzy's One-Ups did
Ozzy's One-Ups support members in their transition to adult leisure activities encouraging and enabling them to continue with or to develop a habit of keeping as physically active as possible; positively challenging their own perceptions of their ability to participate in activities which help them stay fit and active whilst supporting and enabling them to challenge the perceptions of others and have fun. Participants are actively engaged in the delivery of some or part of the sessions. The Club now meets on Tuesday evening and Sunday mornings - providing space to engage in:
- Social gathering that enable the development of relationships and friendships to develop greater self-esteem, confidence and to assist participants to move their leisure time from dependence through to interdependence towards (if desired) independence
- Creative sessions to support service users to explore and exploit existing talent providing motivation to further develop their interest in creative and cultural activities.We did this through fun sessions like karaoke, dance and drama and visits to local parks
- Physical activity to develop an understanding of the importance of good physical health. We do this by explore all avenues and activities to improve physical activity; lots of fun sessions including dancercise, games, walks, sports and games
- Mental wellbeing - exploring current challenges faced by service users including bullying and harassment, safe use of social media, self-esteem and confidence
What The Saturday Cafe Clubs SCIO has learned
For 2020 / 2021 we have continued to learn how to adapt our service offering to maintain a COVID safe environment. We continue to utilise access and egress processes and have the full support from carers and cared-for to continue this process into the foreseeable future. We have accessed other funding sources to ensure we have the appropriate hygiene supplies and we have negotiated a sole use agreement with our landlord to ensure the venue is safe for use at each session. To ensure we remain financially secure we have had to completely restructure our projected budget and we are again working closely with Jobs & Business Glasgow to review our business plan and our performance review processes. On a positive note our carers are incredibly supportive of the hard work and determination of our Board of Trustees, staff and volunteers to continue to deliver the highest quality leisure activities for our cared-for service users and provide carers with suitable, flexible and affordable short breaks from their caring role.
How The Saturday Cafe Clubs SCIO has benefitted from the funding
Again, despite COVID - over the past 2 funding periods we have been able to increase our short break hours to our carers. We have worked more closely with our strategic partners; Care Inspectorate, Glasgow City Council, SoSCN to name a few. We have also become more assured of our position as a learning organisation and now feel more confident to support new entrants to the field of care of children, young people and adults with additional support needs. We have utilised more on-line learning with and for our Board, staff and volunteers and we are now in a position to support staff to complete a recognised qualification to support their future career. Our Sunday morning session which was initially temporary is now a key element of our service delivery to cared-for adults and their carers.
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
Again, due to COVID we were unable to host our peer sessions for carers. Over the good spring and summer weather we did introduced our 'front door' moments where we were able to catch up with small groups (3 - 4 carers) outside the venue. These sessions are not ideal, but at least we were able to catch-up with carers and re-introduce carers to each other. We tried on-line 'group chats', but carers were not responsive to this. Not meeting face-to-face was particularly challenging for our new carers so to try to overcome this we hired space in the local church for a social distance coffee and a chat. This was really successful and is the way we will continue our carer peer sessions/social gatherings for the coming months. Despite this continuing to be a challenging period 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.
Case study
Carer W is the single carer of T - a young woman diagnosed autistic, but with complex sensory needs. Since late March all of T's general day-time services had all but ceased and Carer W was struggling with his own mental health and wellbeing. T had returned to Ozzy's One-Ups in July 2020 (Tuesday evening), but by December 2020 this was the only respite Carer W was receiving. After a chat at drop-off Carer W was offered an additional session for T (Sunday morning) which he was extremely grateful to accept. T continued to attend both sessions through to May 2021 when some of her other day-time services resumed. Carer W expressed that the additional short-break he received really helped improve his mental health and wellbeing. Simple short-breaks are often sufficient to allow carers to re-energise
Outcome
30 cared for adults with complex support needs 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
Despite the limits of the continuing COVID situation we have achieved this target of 30 cared-for adults and 60 carers being supported to participated in a wide range of activities which supported and improved their physical and emotional wellbeing. Although access for carers was still restricted throughout the period of funding we remain confident that carers had time to participate in leisure activities of choice which they report reduces stress and anxiety. Carers report feeling more relaxed and re-energised after their short breaks.
Case study
Carer R - has a daughter E who has transitioned to her own supported housing accommodation. Carer R was feeling very anxious about the transition and was spending more time with E at the supported accommodation. Care R reported that in the early days of the transition and at the periods of COVID restrictions he felt the only time he was relaxed was during the E's time at club. Carer R was extremely grateful for the new Sunday morning provision which meant E could be brought to club by her support worker and carer R had all Sunday morning to relax with some gardening. Carer R's short break increased from 3 to 6 hours per week.
Outcome
60 carers of adults with complex support needs will have a minimum of 3 hours additional short break time free from their role of carer
Results
We both achieved and exceeded this target. All Carers received a minimum 3 hours short-break from their caring role with a minimum of 12 cared-for adults (circa 20 carers) receiving an additional 3 hours per week short-break. From November 2020 to date we have been in a position to increase numbers attending each session and we have continued to provide our additional Sunday morning session meaning that those carers most in need have received 6 hours short-break from care weekly.
Case study
Carers E & R were having real challenges with their cared-for son L. L's condition had become increasingly challenging over the lockdown periods and he had become more susceptible to epileptic seizures. Had attended the Tuesday evening session for 2 years and enjoyed his time at Club. As L's other day services came back on line his carers reported that Tuesday was too long a day and they noticed that often on Wednesday L was very tired and he was more likely to have a seizure. After some discussion with the carers we offered the family the Sunday morning session for L, but as L was challenged when he faced inconsistency we assisted by developing a transition plan with the family. L has now settled to a Sunday morning session and his carers report that this is less stressful for the whole family