Residential learners live in houses on the site and their bedrooms are decorated to suit their personal choice.
At 3pm all learners return from school/college with learning support assistants (LSA) who then give a handover to the residential support workers (RSW) this includes how they have been that day and if they have experienced any problems. On their return learners are offered a soft or warm drink with a snack and they select an activity of their choice supported by the RSW. Later on dinner is prepared by a couple of RSWs with the assistance of some learners who enjoy getting involved by making salad or mixing in the sauce in a dish. When dinner is ready all learners and RSW sit down together to eat. All learners have their individual eating equipment as needed some learners may need help with feeding, others choose which food they wish to eat. Following dinner the evening activities are arranged which cover a wide variety of choice ranging from swimming/hydrotherapy/wall climbing/ archery/trampolining/ some learners go out for meals via public transport or the school mini bus or the community youth club. In using one of the above activities in some cases pictures are shown to identify some activities. Volunteers/Befrienders call round in the evening for a chat and join in with the activities.
Once the early evening activities are over the learners come back to the house, they then bath or shower with the support from the RSW pictorial symbols are used to assist the learner so that they know where to wash some learners need hoisting into the baths. Following on from this some learners are given their medication and then assisted to the bedrooms and depending on what the learner requires the RSW either switches on the TV, reads to them or makes them a bedtime drink.
Once the learners are all in bed the RSW writes up individual log books for the nightshift handover this includes notes from telephone conversations with the parents during the day plus any incidents and other general comments to assist the night shift team. The night shift team arrive at 9.45pm and are given the detailed handover to read prior to taking over the shift and any queries are cleared up prior to the RSW leaving their shift.
There is a real job satisfaction by being a residential support worker as it is a joy to see a smile on the learners face when they have achieved a target. It is a great feeling when you know that you have helped to make a real difference.