At Thera we believe that connecting the people we support to people and places in the community helps to improve your life. This also helps educate the community, enabling them to be more welcoming and inclusive by providing good access. It is a fundamental part of our philosophy.
The flip side of that coin is that we must be proactive in engaging with local communities. A key part of my role is accessing and liaising with local communities to build Thera’s presence in them. Recently, it has been a primary focus of my role. There are practical considerations to this as well as ethical. The social care sector has difficulties with recruitment and lots of providers end up relying on agency use.
By becoming more visible in the areas which we support and showing, and proving, the way we do things is values driven and person centred we hope to promote our brand within these areas and become more attractive to support professionals in that area. There have been two days recently where I have been trying to raise our profile.
On Wednesday 3 July myself and Estelle Christmas, Managing Director, attended Cornwall’s annual Blue Light Day at Wadebridge. The event brings local services together to celebrate the work done by the emergency services, and gives other providers of support the chance to network and promote their own services. It was a wonderful day designed to be as accessible as possible, with a quiet hour between 10am and 11am for those who may experience sensory overload.
We also attended a Music Festival day for Learning Disability Week that took place at the Hollacombe Resource Centre. Hollacombe’s mission statement is is empowering people with lived experience to reach their full potential through a holistic person-centred approach. The event was fantastic!
They had a local DJ with lived experience of a learning disability playing music. We also met people from a learning disability football club and had an amazing discussion about the effects of sport on physical and mental health, cognitive function, and social abilities. We made some invaluable additions to our network which has raised our profile but also given people we support access to incredible services.
There are lots of areas in my role as a Service Quality Director. I am responsible for monitoring support and ensuring it is up to standard, however the role stretches far beyond that. I am required to lead by example, accessing communities and leading the charge in promoting Thera’s visions and methodologies. Attending a music festival day is hard work, but someone has to do it!