Our Approach

At Kingwood we believe the people we support are entitled to a personal service, to feel healthy and safe, to achieve their potential, to be supported by first rate staff, to feel that they are properly consulted and involved in decisions affecting their lives and, not least, to enjoy active citizenship.  Please click on the following links to discover more about each key area.

• A personal service
• Being healthy and safe
• Achieving potential
• First rate staff
• Consulting and involving
• Active Citizenship

A personal service

• Each plan contains all the essential information that staff need to provide quality support in the way the individual wants and needs.
• Each person we support has a key worker responsible for their overall care and support.
• We are also committed to making information accessible, using the communication methods each person prefers.

Being healthy and safe

• Kingwood believes in the principle that people with disabilities have the same rights to health care as the population in general.
• It is important to us that the people we support are treated as adults with the capacity to consent to the activities they want to do and to treatment, unless proven otherwise.
• The following are important aspects of our approach:
  • Ensuring that health plans contain information about the individual’s specific needs and abilities.
  • Ensuring that individuals are supported to be as independent as possible.
  • Supporting individuals to manage health appointments and medication.
  • Supporting individuals to understand treatment and access relevant health information.
  • Providing support to understand healthy living and eating.

Achieving potential

• We work with the person we support to produce a person centred plan which focuses on their goals and aspirations. This may include supporting the individual to:
  • Live more independently.
  • Find training and employment.
  • Develop and learn new skills, through life skills and other training.
  • Find activities which are stretching and rewarding.

As part of this commitment, we have recruited some of the people we support to carry out paid work for Kingwood.

First rate staff

• The quality of our work is heavily dependent on the staff we employ:
  • We make sure we recruit people who have an understanding of disabilities and have the right kind of values and experience.
  • We have a comprehensive induction programme which emphasises our ethos and commitment to people with autism. There is also an on-going staff training programme, with input from the people we support.
  • We carry out regular reviews of staff performance.
  • We involve the people we support in the recruitment of staff.
  • We work with the Looking at Us project, which provides training for people with a learning disability to enable them to visit people receiving a service from other providers and assess the quality of that support.

Consulting and involving

• Kingwood’s view is that the experiences of the people we support are essential to designing and delivering services:
  • We invite people we support to take part in the recruitment of new staff, including sitting on interview panels.
  • We involve people we support in the delivery of training to staff.
  • We set up working parties to involve the people we support in developing service user guides.
  • In shared accommodation services, regular house meetings are encouraged to provide an opportunity for co-tenants to share issues and concerns.
  • We hold regular meetings for the people we support and their families to come together and present us with feedback on our performance.
  • We regularly investigate people’s views about our services, including sending out an annual “satisfaction” survey to the people we support and their families.

Active citizenship

• We also devote a great deal of time to finding ways of supporting people to play an active part in the life of their communities, including:
  • Participating in social activities locally, with opportunities to meet others with similar interests.
  • Enjoying sports and hobbies.
  • Opportunities to volunteer.
  • Involvement in Kingwood’s management, services and activities.
  • Participation in community affairs, such as voting in elections.