I met with Kevin’s sister as she clearly told me on the phone that Kevin was reluctant to meet any new people and actually is not keen to have “support workers” supporting him. This was due to this being a new approach to his support and also that Kevin does not see himself as someone who needs paid support.
I managed to gather some information about Kevin and focused a lot on what his interests were, as I was keen to identify someone in my team who would be able to relate to really well to Kevin. One of the things that the assessment highlighted was that Kevin has a dog (Mollie) who he sees as the most important part of his life. He is also a keen gardener and is actually very involved in his local community: helping out his neighbours with various gardening jobs and making pottery. I agreed with Kevin’s sister that we would meet again at Kevin’s home the following week, and that I would bring with me the member of staff who would potentially be delivering Kevin’s support.
After gathering the information, I went back to the office and had a chat with one of the support workers in my team, Peter, who I knew from the information he shared when writing his One Page Profile, had similar interests to Kevin. Peter read the assessment and we discussed some aspects of the support Kevin will require and decided on a day to go and meet him.
Nothing else was discussed until the following week when Peter and I went to meet Kevin at his home. As we parked the car and approached the front door we heard loud barking, and when Kevin and his sister opened the door a big dog followed behind them. We had a very quick chance of introducing ourselves before we were covered in dog hair and slobber! Kevin was very quietly watching us and apart from a quiet “Hello” he didn’t engage with us.
As I was trying to engage in conversation with Kevin and his sister, I saw Kevin’s attention focusing behind me towards Peter, who was still interacting with the dog. That’s when I saw that Peter had taken out of his pocket a small packet of dog biscuits and was talking to the dog and petting her. I was very surprised as I wasn’t aware Peter had the dog biscuits with him and we hadn’t discussed this at all. It clearly showed that Peter had reflected on the information given on the initial ‘Getting to Know You’ assessment and had clearly thought of creative ways to break down any potential barriers.
Kevin continued watching and after a few minutes he went to Peter and joined in the conversation about Mollie. Within 10 minutes, Kevin was showing Peter around his home. Needless to say our visit ended on a very positive note, as Kevin actually asked Peter if he could come over again and started talking about his plans around work in the garden and how Peter could help him with this.
Since then, Kevin has met Peter every week and last week Kevin asked his Care Manager if Peter can support him more often than just once a week.
Peter’s facilitative approach, and in particular his creativity to engage with Kevin has clearly worked very well.
Simon Dawes
Head of Service
Dartford Road