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Sunnyside House scoop Winner of Winners prize at Skills for Care's Accolades

Press release 9 March 2012

 

Accolades Winners 2011/12

 

Sunnyside House have beaten off strong competition at the prestigious Skills for Care Accolades to scoop the Winner of Winners award.

The Sunnyside team won the 'Most effective new approach to service delivery' and then picked up the Winner of Winners Award from guest presenter Sherrie Hewson at the awards ceremony in Manchester.

The Skills for Care Accolades, now in their ninth year, celebrate the outstanding achievements of some of the best adult social care employers across England.

Sunnyside House is a residential home in Thurrock supporting 12 learning disabled adults and specialising in preparing young adults to move into their own accommodation.

The team support the young adults to sustain a life of independence using an educational life skills training programme and an on site training flat to practice the skills learned.

The judges were very impressed by their aim to enable people with learning disabilities to gain knowledge and skills to live independently through the use of the My Learning Independence For Ever (My LIFE) programme. The programme supports principles of personalisation creating a framework for service users, family carers and staff to achieve realistic outcomes.

My LIFE programme is modular so can be used as a full programme or choose specific elements according to individual needs. The programme can be adapted to work with people with various levels and types of disabilities or life limiting illnesses as the modules relate to areas such as confidence building, assertive, dealing with conflict and budgeting.

My LIFE has inspired new ideas, thinking and ways of working for service users, family carers, staff and commissioners developing a holistic approach to independent living.

"Sunnyside House thoroughly deserved their Winner of Winners crown as their innovative approach to person centred care beat off fierce competition from all the finalists in the eight categories," says Skills for Care CEO Sharon Allen,

"Everyone at the ceremony was impressed by their absolute commitment to person centred care and thinking differently about service delivery that has completely transformed the lives of the people they work with."

 

Media enquiries:

Photograph  - Sunnyside House Thurrock, Sherrie Hewson, Nadra Ahmed OBE - Skills for Care Board Member, David Croisdale Appleby OBE - Chair Skills for Care, David Behan - Department of Health and Sharon Allen - CEO Skills for Care.

Nicola Tudor, Skills for Care - 0113 241 1207 nicola.tudor@skillsforcare.org.uk

Notes to editors:

  1. Skills for Care is the employment-led strategic body for workforce development in adult social care in England, which is licensed jointly with its UK allies by UKCES to be the 'Skills for Care and Development' Sector Skills Council (SSC). Both organisations are chaired by Professor David Croisdale-Appleby. The other members of the SSC are the Children's Workforce Development Council (also for England), the General Social Care Council, the Scottish Social Services Council, the Care Council for Wales, and the Northern Ireland Social Care Council.
  2. Skills for Care forms a strategic overview of workforce needs in adult social care, which accounts for nearly 1.6 million workers or 5 per cent of England's workforce, spread over 40,600 establishments employing care staff. Skills for Care members are drawn from groups representing public, private and voluntary sector care employers, along with representatives of staff, trainers, service users and informal carers. Social care includes residential care, domiciliary care and social work with all its specialisms.
  3. Skills for Care and its SSC allies promote and develop the social care sector's National Occupational Standards which are statements of competence that describe 'best practice'.
  4. Skills for Care regional committees are major brokers of funding for social care workforce development.