Hopefully Something…

“What are you going to do with that?” The question my aunt asked me when I told her I was going to do a Master’s degree in Human Rights. “I don’t know,” I told her. “Hopefully, something.”

Something that will make a difference. I guess that’s what we all want to do really, just in our own, individual way.

My first experience of the difference a human rights based approach can make came after university. I moved to India to work for a Human Rights Charity called Shanti Bhavan or in English, Haven of Peace. The charity, the only of its kind in the world, supports children from the Dalit or ‘untouchable’ caste to fulfil their potential through human rights. These children, of which there are over 300 million, are considered to be worthless, unable to become anyone or anything or to contribute to society in any other way than sweeping the streets before sunrise.

Shanti Bhavan is a residential school which invites these children in and grants them their basic human rights from day one; the right to non-discrimination, the right to be treated with dignity and respect, the right to security and the right to education. The school provides, board, food, clothing, medical care and education from nursery through to university entrance exams. The charity started in 1997 and in 2010 saw its first batch of university graduates all of which secured jobs, lifting their families out of poverty, their villages in some cases and breaking the cycle of ‘caste.’ That’s the power of human rights, if we strive to treat everyone equally, with respect and dignity then we give everyone the opportunity to fulfil their potential.

In Scotland, we don’t have a caste system to contend with but we do have a system, a way of doing things, a way of seeing things which means that for some, human rights are not always realised. Older people are amongst these vulnerable groups. Sadly, Action on Elder Abuse estimated recently that 500,000 older people are subject to abuse at any one time. Our work at Scottish Care seeks to address this, to shape a care sector in which older people are respected, independent and equal members of society.

Over the past year, we’ve been working with older people in residential care and those receiving care at home or housing support to develop our Human Rights Conventions. We asked them, “What rights need to be protected to allow you to achieve your full potential?” They told us that they needed the right to privacy, to family life, to security, to freedom from inhumane or degrading treatment, to choice and to non-discrimination.

And, like Shanti Bhavan, in Scotland, there exists organisations and individuals who strive on a daily basis to promote and protect these rights. Carers who stay an extra hour after their shift to ensure that Jane feels secure and comfortable, who listen for hours on end to show Robert that he’s respected and important, who close the curtains to provide privacy. Nurses who take the time to explain things calmly and compassionately, who hold someone’s hand through a hard time, who ask, “are you ok?” to ensure dignity.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that the human rights we all entitled to and that we all need to flourish don’t change depending on where you live, what ‘caste’ you come from or what age you are. They are about how we treat people, how we make them feel and how we support them to achieve their potential as human beings. And, everywhere, there exists people who make these rights real. This blog is dedicated to them.

And, if anyone reading this needs a bit of motivation or positivity to get through today, take a look at this video of the children of Shanti Bhavan, I miss them an incredible amount.

[email protected]

 

 

Don’t walk away – a mental health challenge

 

One of the most interesting and yet challenging studies I have read recently was one published in the British Journal of Psychology last week. In an extensive European wide study researchers found many more elderly people than expected have or have experienced a mental disorder when evaluating them with a new, simpler screening technique. Indeed they discovered that nearly one-quarter of older people had a mental disorder in the previous year, and one-third had been treated for one in the previous year.

 

Traditionally it had been thought that the risk of mental disorders declined with age, but this new study suggests that is not true, raising concerns because of the greater effect depression, anxiety or substance dependence can have on health conditions for older people.

 

According to the researchers, older people struggle to remain attentive during traditional diagnostic tests and the questions may be too long or complicated, which makes their performance even worse. For the new study, researchers developed a new diagnostic method using a computer-based interview system with simplified questions and statements.

 

This research seems to underpin what I have been hearing and witnessing when I talk to staff who work in care homes, care at home and housing support services. The challenges facing services in Scotland are significant. It was therefore a positive measure to see proposals in the consultation on Scotland’s Ten Year Mental Health Strategy which have the potential to address the mental health challenges of our older citizens.

 

Scottish Care has made a response to the consultation. In it we highlight that many older people develop mental health challenges later in life, often when they are receiving care at home or care in residential settings.

 

We have come a long way in the last ten years with our work on dementia. However, there has always been a risk that the focus on dementia has taken our eye off other mental health and life enduring challenges faced by older Scots. I spoke recently to someone who had lived with chronic depression most of their adult life and had received good supports until that is they got to 65 years of age. Then almost overnight, he told me, it felt like the system was abandoning him and the supports he had been used to changed and disappeared.

 

“It was like standing at a window and seeing everything and everyone who had helped you live your life, especially in the down times, walk down the street and wave goodbye. I felt really alone.”

 

 

We have I believe to get much better at supporting people who have life enduring mental health challenges transition from adult to older people services. This will include properly resourcing the older people care sector to train and equip staff to deal with mental health issues and challenges and also to give greater priority to enable the development of new models of support which can cater for individual and particular mental health needs.

 

In addition, old age itself brings about a whole range of changes, many of which are positive and welcomed, but some are challenging and difficult. I do not believe, and the study quoted above highlights this, that we have sufficiently robust mechanisms in place for diagnosing and then supporting individuals who develop a whole range of conditions after the age of 65.

 

There is a real opportunity for Scottish Government, older people and providers to work together to improve the quality of mental health support. At times of vulnerability we need to give people the feeling and sense that people are there to support and guide, not that they are walking away from them.

 

Dr Donald Macaskill

18^th September, 2016

 

Greetings from Argyll and Bute.  We wanted to let you know about an exciting project that took place in Oban this summer.

One of the care at home providers, Carer’s Direct, took part in a pilot for a placement for physiotherapy students from Glasgow Caledonia University.  The placement was referred to as a split placement – the students time was split between the physiotherapy department in Oban, Lorne and the Isles District General Hospital, the Community Healthcare Team and Carers Direct.  This was an ideal project for us to work on together, as it built on improved partner relationships which had developed in Argyll and Bute over the last few years.  These relationships were forged against the backdrop of RCOP (Reshaping Care for Older People) and a workforce development project facilitated by IRISS (Institute of Research and Innovation in Social Services) and supported through the role of the Local Integration Leads.

The aim of the placement was to promote awareness of the move to more people being cared for at home and the implications for healthcare professionals (specifically physiotherapists) of supporting people in their own home.

The project was supported by a steering group with representatives from each of the agencies involved – Carer’s Direct, NHS Highland, NES, Care Inspectorate, Scottish Care, Glasgow Caledonian University so that learning from the pilot could be written up and disseminated.

Thanks to a lot of goodwill and hard work from all of the agencies involved in supporting the students during the placement it was a real success. We also have to mention here that the sun shone on Oban for the duration of the placement!  We are hoping that having worked and seen Argyll in it’s best light this might help with recruitment and retention!  Some of the students evaluation has been filmed and will be widely available soon – look out for the link on the Scottish Care website.  There will also be a link to the written evaluation and this includes lessons learned as well as the notable successes.

Of particular interest to care at home providers, development officers and local integration leads will be the students comments about how little time care at home staff are allocated to complete complex care tasks.  For the students this was at odds with promoting independence.  Care staff reported back that it was very helpful to have access to the physiotherapy students and to learn from how they worked with people to promote well-being and independence.  The care at home manager observed that care staff have gained transferrable skills and insight from working with the students.  We also recognised that the project helped cement relationships across the sectors within the partnership, promoted a better rapport and understanding of each other’s perspective and fostered a stronger team approach to delivering care.

Glasgow Caledonian University are keen to extend split placements for students to other providers and other areas of Scotland as a result of the outcomes from the pilot.  So if you know of any providers who might be interested in hosting a placement please spread the word.

 

Anne Austin & Susan M. Spicer,

Argyll and Bute Local Integration Lead, Scottish Care (job-share)

Anne’s email:  [email protected]   or, mobile: 07460898897

Susan’s email: [email protected] or, mobile:07771610728

Let’s start talking…

 

For both personal and professional reasons my mind these last few weeks has been much occupied by thoughts of death and dying.

Now before you scroll away stay with me for a while …

It’s always struck me as a strange indictment of our modern living how uncomfortable we are as a society with talk about death. If sex, politics and taxes were the Victorian taboo then death has surely been added to the modern dining table no go areas of conversation. Why is that I wonder? Is it because death has to some extent become a stranger, an occasional visitor we keep standing at the doorstep of our experience?

A hundred years ago, certainly in a Scottish context, the immediacy of death was intimate. Most people died at home, in their own bed, own street and own community. Scottish traditions such as the ‘kisting’ where the remains of the deceased remained in the family home until the funeral and where ordinary living continued around about, made death feel a more natural stage. The average Scot at that time experienced the death of a close family member at an early age but today for many folks their first encounter with bereavement is often in their late twenties.

In December 2015 the Strategic Framework for Action on Palliative and End of Life Care 2016-2021 was published by the Scottish Government. It has a set of ten commitments of which the sixth states:

‘Support greater public and personal discussion of bereavement, death, dying and care at the end of life.’

Later the Strategy describes the danger of the over medicalisation of death –

‘Social and cultural change has resulted in a ‘death-denying culture’ and the medicalisation of death. An entire generation has come to expect that all aspects of dying will be taken care of by professionals and institutions, potentially undermining personal and community resilience in coping with death, dying and loss as part of the ‘cycle of life’.

The Strategy is a real opportunity for us to change the way in which people are supported at the end of life and also to change and challenge popular attitudes to dying and bereavement. In my work I speak to many frontline staff in care at home, housing support services and care homes who day in and day out are engaged in support for individuals who are at the end of their life. Their work is irreplaceable and their contribution to ensuring that people spend their last few days in dignity, with appropriate support and the management of pain and distress is critical.

At times, however, the role of social care staff whether in a nursing home or in the community, is not always appreciated or valued. Yet this is perhaps the most important work any of us can undertake on behalf of another. It is work which has a value beyond calculation but it is also hard, emotionally draining and challenging.

 

Over the next few weeks and months Scottish Care staff and members will be involved with other health and social care colleagues in working to try to make sure that all staff, whatever their role, feel a sense of support and training to enable them to do this work as best as they can.

One of the first challenges in that is for us all to start talking about death, being open to discussions about mortality, and to help one another to become communities where grieving and bereavement are at the heart of who we are and what we do. There is a terrible conspiracy of silence around death and that silence has to end for the sake of us all.

If we do not as a society and community start considering death and what it means for us all then we are left with a lot of people struggling to cope and all the negative health impacts that result. One of my favourite poems around grief is Nobody ever told me. It highlights just how hard it is for people to talk and be open in this area but equally how the work of the new Strategy is essential in getting us all to share, talk, reflect and be comfortable with mortality.

 

Nobody ever told me.

 

Nobody ever told me

it would be this hard;

that I’d wake up in the morning

and think that you were there

lying beside me in our bed;

that I’d walk down the street

and recognise your shadow

following me in the sun;

that I’d listen to the radio

and hear your voice

inviting me to sing;

that I’d sit in the park

and watch you go by

in a group of strangers.

 

Nobody ever told me

it would be this hard;

that I’d wonder why I should

get up in the morning;

that I’d think making plans

was a children’s playground game;

that I’d rage with anger, red and raw,

at your leaving;

that I’d wonder was it me

who did something

that made you go away.

 

Nobody ever told me

it would be this hard.

 

Why can’t someone tell me instead

how I can stop crying

and dam the tears from soaking my pillow?

How I can start again when all I want to do

is rest in our lost togetherness?

How I can ‘move on’ when I only want to settle

in the place of our memories?

 

And please someone tell me

when will this time come,

the time they all talk of

in easy careless cliche,

the time which they say

will heal all things

and help me to live again?
Donald Macaskill

Eddie Coleman : No Two days the same

‘A fantastic blog by Eddie Coleman – a front line support worker at Loretto Care and an active member of the Scottish Care Front Line Strategy Forum– highlighting the skills and attributes needed at the front line of social care.

Thanks Eddie!

 

I rang the bell. The door was opened by a perplexed looking Mrs Jones (not real name) clutching a letter in her hand.

‘Come in’, she said. So I did. ‘You look worried this morning’ I offered.  ‘Aye, I am son. I got this letter this morning and I haven’t stopped worrying since. I haven’t been able to eat breakfast for worrying’.

No breakfast, now that’s not good.

‘Can I look at your letter?’ I asked. ‘Of course you can, you were getting it anyway. They’re stopping my benefits’.

I looked at the letter and sure enough it was from the benefits office. The letter stated that there had been overpayments to Mrs Jones’s housing benefit going back three months and that they would be taking £3 off her benefits every two weeks until the overpayment is paid back. I explained all this to Mrs Jones who was visibly relieved. ‘Aw is that all? I just saw overpayment and pay back £30 and thought the worse’. She sighed.

‘Three pounds, not thirty’ I advised. ‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers’. That gave us a laugh anyway.

The Sherlock Holmes in me decided to double check the claims in the letter. I explained to Mrs Jones that I would like to phone housing to verify that there was in fact overpayments made to her housing benefit and asked her if that would be ok. It was.

In short, I spoke with a very nice person who informed me that this wrong and that it was a mistake on the part of the benefits office.

Right, I thought, put the rest of the morning on hold while I phone the benefits office. To be fair, I know they have a very, very busy schedule.

I phoned my office and spoke with the shift co-ordinator who was able to arrange for a colleague to do my next projected visit for me.

Deep breath.

Pachelbel’s Canon was very soothing to my ear. Not so the ‘you are number 48 in the queue’. Ok, so that was a bit of an exaggeration but you get the picture.

To cut a long story short, and quote Spandau ballet, I got it all sorted out after an hour and a half and was very happy to tell Mrs Jones that there had been a mistake and that her benefits will remain as they are.

Now, about that breakfast……

And the moral of the story is that patience, persistence, inquisitiveness, a nice manner and team work will get you through most days as a frontline care worker.

 

Tracy Viljoen:

I came into this role hoping to help to make a difference to others.  My Twitter profile states that you should “be somebody who makes everybody feel like a somebody”; something I genuinely believe in.

I’m sure anyone who knows me would say that “Tracy loves anything to do with leadership, she loves all that fluffy stuff” and they would be absolutely right. But, I’m glad to say that more and more people out there quite like the taste, the need and the success of ‘fluffy’.

North Lanarkshire is saturated with many wonderful stories of success, the problem is that staff however are not always great at blowing their own trumpet; they typically say “But that’s just what we do” or “it’s my job”. One care home had a resident with mental health issues and challenging behavior, he was quite unstable and sadly unhappy. He had always talked about owning a pet and so the care home manager and staff decided to take a SAFE RISK and arrange for ‘Gordy’; a bearded dragon to come and live with the resident.  Self-harming incidents have significantly reduced for this man and the staff can work with him in a far more manageable way.

A local frontline worker who was on nightshift when a resident took ill managed to stop a hospital admission being arranged by the GP – the lady had an anticipatory care plan (ACP) in place which stated very clearly she wished to remain at home, to die around loved ones and staff who knew her and how she liked to live. The worker used her AUTONOMY and SELF LEADERSHIP to achieve the desired outcome. I could go on and on, there are literally no shortage of examples of amazing things and great practice happening here in North Lanarkshire.

Last year I went to a workshop run by the amazing IRISS which was called ‘THE BIG IDEA’ and oh my word that’s exactly what it has turned into. They wanted a local partnership to work with, on any chosen project, in the new integrated world. Obviously I wanted this to be North Lanarkshire and 10 months later we are slap bang in the middle of an experience based co-design programme or as we call it EBCD. Developed by Bate and Robert it’s a methodology for working with groups of people who access support or care and the staff who provide this to improve services.

We have partners from all sectors, NHS Local Authority and social work involved in a project that is looking at the experience of going to Monklands A&E Department if you are a frequent attender who arrives in DISTRESS but not needing clinical attention. Such a worthwhile project and even today I met another provider who wants to be involved at the co-design stage.

There are so many examples of great projects locally which show innovation and great passion.

North Lanarkshire frontline staff in the independent care sector are creative and innovative and I have no doubt will continue to go from strength to strength if this work continues at both local and national level. These are exciting times for the sector!

 

Tracy Viljoen, Development Officer for North Lanarkshire

 [email protected]

Mob: 07446843547