Stepping Out Blog

Smoking Increases Risk of Dementia Says Experts

smoking-397599_640Information published by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI) has revealed that smokers have a 45% higher risk of developing dementia than non-smokers.

The evidence shows a strong link between smoking and the risk of dementia, and the more a person smokes, the higher the risk. It is estimated that almost 15% of Alzheimer’s disease cases worldwide are potentially due to smoking. Not to mention the risk factors associated with cancers, cardiovascular diseases, chronic lung disease and diabetes.

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Home Care and Support Services

Home Care and Support Services

Nature of Service

Stepping Out is a specialist care and support service providing high level support and supervision. We are able to offer personalised services to clients with early on-set dementia and other issues to include learning difficulties, and mental health.

We aim to aid our clients regain lost skills and abilities and promote their independence and dignity.

Service values

We are passionate about empowering and involving service users: We actively support Service Users to:

Communicate their choice in all stages of service development from assessment through to service delivery and beyond.

  • Maximise their potential; building on strengths and meet individual needs towards independence and autonomy, choice and control.
  • Be an active member of the community if desired.
  • Make informed decisions and take positive risks.
  • Achieve better outcomes, ensuring a balance of needs and wants are met.
  • Identify what’s truly important and provide encouragement to actively live by those values.
  • Develop a healthy respect for self and others.
  • Develop self-confidence, self-worth and interpersonal skills.
  • Develop trust in others and share relevant information within the bounds of confidentiality.

 

Aims & Objectives

The Stepping Out Home Care service’s main aims and objectives are as follows:

 

  • To provide a broad range of person centred services that meet the diverse needs of our customers to maximise control, choice independence and autonomy.
  • To promote and improve quality of life for individuals. Our service is tailored to meet the individual requirements of the service user in order to maintain maximum quality of life and normality in their own home.
  • Protect the rights and promote the interests of service users.
  • Promote the independence of people who use our services while protecting them as far as possible from danger and harm.
  • We aim to work persistently with the community to ensure universal services are increasingly geared up to meet peoples personalised needs.

Delivery of Service

Our person centred support teams aim to aid clients maintain independence and ensure they are able to remain within their own homes for as long as possible. Below are some of the main areas our staff members strive to teach, reduce, explore and or support a client achieve.

•          Support with Daily Hygiene Routines

•          Support with food Preparation

•          Support with maintaining a clean and safe living environment

•          Support with Food & Grocery Shopping

•          Support with attending leisure & health activities

•          Support with family contact

•          Religious & cultural needs & preferences

•          Support with reducing substance & alcohol abuse

•          Safety & self-harm reduction + safeguarding

•          Daily reflective support on conduct & behaviour

•          Managing Incidents

•          Support with socialising and community integration

•          Support with attending appointments

•          Support with or to maintain independent skills

•          help increase self-esteem and confidence in order to reach their full potential.

Click here to contact us in order to discuss a bespoke care package for you, a client or a family member.

Click here to view and download our HomeCare brochure.

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Dementia Care

Dementia and its symptoms (Dementia Care)

‘Dementia’ is a term used to describe the symptoms that occur when the brain is affected by specific diseases and conditions.  It is an umbrella term used to describe the effects of closely linked diseases. These include Alzheimer’s disease and sometimes are the result of a stroke. Dementia is progressive, which means the symptoms will gradually get worse. How fast dementia progresses will depend on the individual. Each person is unique and will experience dementia in their own way. There are approximately 750,000 people in the UK with dementia.

Symptoms and how we can help

Below are just some of the symptoms that our service will manage and seek to reduce where possible:

  • Loss of memory − this particularly affects short-term memory, for example forgetting what happened earlier in the day, not being able to recall conversations, being repetitive or forgetting the way home from the shops. Long-term memory is usually still quite good.

Stepping Out home care service will offer the client targeted, well planned 1-1 support. In General the regular use of planning documents such as weekly activity plans, shopping lists, goal setting plans, timetables and visual image based tool will aid the client remember important tasks. Importantly the on-duty staff member should exercise patience and employ active listening techniques due to memory loss the client may feel anxious; insecure; frustrated and or embarrassed. Therefore our Stepping Out aims to offer a truly person centred service.  To be person-centred is be tuned into the emotions of a person and to understand how they are feeling and why. Factors which help with this are knowing about the person, their past – family, likes, dislikes, values etc. – as the better you know the person the more likely you are to be able to relate to them and understand their behaviours. Also essential is to be familiar with the person’s capability, This is important to Stepping Out and our staff members are regularly trained and supervised so that they can provide fulfilment by appropriately matching the complexity of activities to the ability and limitations or the client. For example, it would be inappropriate to give a crossword to a person who is experiencing severe memory difficulties; this may cause frustration and may induce an incident.

  • Communication -The person with dementia will experience increasing problems understanding what is being said to them and what is going on around them. They are likely to find it difficult to communicate with other people. They may gradually lose their speech.

Stepping Out ensures its staff members receive regular training on effective communication; they are trained to be able to understand a client’s feelings via certain behaviour and or body language, eye contact and tone of voice. Our staff are trained to actively listen to clients whilst positioning themselves accordingly as to not cause any distress, tension or anxiety to the client. Visual tools and other interactive communication aids are to be used in order to ensure effective communication. Staff members must employ patience and always ensure they communicate with respect towards the client.

 Challenging Behaviour – The person with dementia may display puzzling and or at times challenging behaviour this may be in the form of physical aggression or verbal abuse.

Our staff members receive regular training on managing challenging behaviour. Importantly a client with dementia may display challenging behaviour due to feeling distressed, anxious and or frustrated. At such times, staff members must provide proactive, dedicated 1-1 support and use communication methods best suited to the client in order to alleviate the client’s anxieties. Our Company operates a no physical intervention policy. This means we will not physically restrain and or challenge a client. Therefore our staff must exhaust all means of calming and effectively communicating with the client. Other interventions may include new communication strategies, counselling, medical evaluation and treatment.

Contact us to find out how our homecare service and or our specialist semi-independent projects can aid those with Dementia.

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Helping people back into Education, Employment or Training

Stepping out supports and accommodates young people and adults with varying difficulties, our clients usually display severe challenging behaviour and unfortunately are commonly not in education, employment or training, (NEET).

Our main goal is to aid our clients on to independence, this means by the end of their stay with Stepping Out they should be able to and or have improved with the following:

• Carry out weekly food and grocery shopping.

• Budgeting/Money management skills.

• Ability to cook a variety of healthy meals.

• Feel a sense of social inclusion or integration.

• Reduce any substance misuse issues.

• Receive support and treat mental health issues. (where possible)

• Engage in a hobby and or take part in leisure and health activities.

• Become competent with and understand the benefits system/ filling forms.

• Be able to sustain a tenancy in general.

• Able to maintain a clean and safe living environment.

• Obtain an education, training or employment placement.

Of course the above list is not exhaustive however we feel a client is able to safely move on to an independent setting if they are competent with the above.

The most important task is that based around a form of education, employment or training, we feel a client may not be able to maintain an independent lifestyle if they do not at the least, increase their chances of employment by engaging with training providers and or educational courses.

This is usually a large stumbling block, particularly for clients whom have had a history of offending, are challenging in nature, have learning difficulties and or other issues.

A fair proportion of clients both within our care and generally do not have the motivation, confidence or the ability to access services provided by third party organisations, some of our clients’ need support with getting to and from the jobcentre, others particularly those with ADHD or Autism may struggle to adjust to change and may not engage with a different organisation.

Hence why Stepping Out will soon be offering education and training opportunities in-house. This means our clients will be in a position where they can take part in various courses within our semi independent living provisions. This will increase the possibility of the client engaging and will maximise their chances of moving on to an independent setting.

Stepping Out will be offering a vast array of in-house courses to include:

• Careers education/preparation for working life.

• Developing skills for employment.

• Economic wellbeing & financial capability.

• Independent living.

• Functional skills in English.

• Functional skills in Maths.

• Youth work certification.

• Creative skills development.

• Level 2 Award in Recognising and Responding to Substance Misuse.

• Level 2 Award in Food Safety in Health and Social Care and Early Years and Childcare Settings.

• Level 2 Certificate in Community Mental Health Work.

• Level 1 Award in Employability & Personal Development Lifestyle (QCF).

• QCF Level 2 Diploma in Health & Social Care.

• Level 1 Award in Preparing to work in Adult Social Care.

Our company will be offering QCF training and potential apprenticeships in health and social care to our clients and the general public.

Please feel free to contact us for more information about our Semi-Independent living provisions, our outreach support services and our training packages.

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New Provision

New Provision

Stepping Out have recently procured a ground floor two bedroom property within the Hertfordshire Borough (Broxbourne EN10) Located just 5 Minutes North of junction 25 of the M25 Motorway and East of the Great Cambridge Road A10, Being a short Walk from Broxbourne Train Station which links to Moorgate in London as well as connections to Underground stations for the Piccadilly and Victoria lines.

The provision is ideal for those whom have been diagnosed under the Autistic Spectrum Disorder, have Learning Disabilities and or Early On-Set Dementia. The provision can be staffed up to 24 hours per day on a 1-1 or 2:1 ratio.

To register your interest please contact us as soon as possible on 020 8342 7217.

 Early Onset Dementia Services
Stepping Out provide a specialist Dementia care and support service. We offer high levels of support and supervision via 24 hour staffed semi-independent living projects. We are able to offer personalised services to clients with early on-set dementia, in order to aid them regain lost skills and abilities with the main aim of promoting independence and dignity.

Visual tools such as picture cards (examples below) and other interactive communication aids are used in order to ensure effective communication, as we understand that those with Dementia often struggle to communication effectively. Additionally we recognize that challenging behaviour can also be a result of Dementia, thus, we ensure our staff are both experienced and trained in order to suitably manage such situations.

Additional support based on our travel training program can be put in to place in order to maintain and or seek to build on the clients independent travel skills.

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