Supported Housing
We at Yvonne Lewis Group, have a core consensus, that every child deserves support and unconditional love from their family wherever possible. Such values are why we are an independent provider, facilitating 24hour supervised contact and family support services across the UK.
Providing safe high quality and supportive accommodation for young people and preparing them for independent living is imperative and it’s at the core of our supported housing service.Yvonne Lewis supports young people by delivering high quality support to young people who are 16 years and over. Our accommodation is value for money and comfortable with a suitable living environment that respects the needs of our young people, and enhances their emotional cultural, physical/mental wellbeing, education/training, and employment needs. Our services are purposeful with 24/hr staffed to deliver consistent support in a quality accommodation ensures improved outcomes in the lives of our young people while they enjoy the local facilities in their communities.
Yvonne Lewis commits to providing every young person under our care with a safe place to live independently where they have their own private bedrooms and only share communal areas such as kitchen and lounge areas. Our 24 hours support workers assist our young people in gaining skills and confidence to maintain good healthy relationships in their home environments and the community they live in, provide support in managing the young person’s finances through regular monthly keywork sessions of direct support hours.
Yvonne Lewis supports young people by delivering high quality support to young people who are 16 years and over. Our accommodation is value for money and comfortable with a suitable living environment that respects the needs of our young people, and enhances their emotional cultural, physical/mental wellbeing, education/training, and employment needs. Our services are purposeful with 24/hr staffed to deliver consistent support in a quality accommodation ensures improved outcomes in the lives of our young people while they enjoy the local facilities in their communities.
Supported Housing and Accomodation
- All our homes have an office for staff and an extra room for key working sessions where support staff will engage in one-on-one interactions with the young person. All our accommodations comply with housing regulations, legislation, statutes, registration standards and guidance including updates, amendments, and re-enactments required by Local Authorities.
- We are committed to the provider charter by ensuring all our staff attend all training sessions regarding the Local Authorities standard for supported accommodation for young people including the amendment to the care planning placement and case review (England) 2010 regulations and the accommodation new standards.
Both houses will be managed with one manager and six support staff. Support workers will provide practical support such as, assisting the young person to open a bank account, and helping to complete education application forms. Key workers will assess all young people to identify individual support needs and agree a support plan with the Local Authorities Life Skills Programme in conjunction with the young person’s social worker/personal advisor.
- As part of our pre-placement planning, we will ensure information about the service is available to the young person including photos of the accommodation, the support workers, and the available nearby facilities. The young person will get a licence agreement and a copy of our complaint’s procedure.
At the end of each placement, the young person will be assessed. Yvonne Lewis Limited will provide a full report of the placement, future accommodation and or further support where required.
In the situation where our young person refuses to engage (over a period of 28 days), or irretrievable breakdown of support relationship occurs, the home manager shall notify the Contracting Authority and social workers immediately to consider an alternative placement.
- Yvonne Lewis has a secure storage and data management system. All information regarding our young people and the Contracting Authority are stored in our securely and password protected to safeguard against unauthorised or improper access, and against accidental loss of a young person’s personal data. Only staff with the need to know are issued with the rights and password to access the young person’s files. Our data processing system is designed to identify authorised staff who have accessed a young person’s file and records the date and time each file was accessed. All staff working with our young people have undergone the GDPR training.
- Yvonne Lewis Limited engage in monthly and quarterly review meetings with social workers and Contracts Monitoring Team.
We welcome visits from all stakeholders including social workers, independent recovery officers, education/health authorities and CAMHS workers.
As part of our quality control, our young people will be encouraged to provide feedback verbally or in writing after monthly keyword sessions and when they move on from our accommodation. Feedback will be on the young person’s safety on our accommodation, budgeting, and independent living skills.
- Safeguarding is a fundamental part of our service. Yvonne Lewis Limited therefore complies with the Local Authorities and the Safeguarding Children Boards. Our support staff have regular contact with all our young people and will notify the social worker, and placement service officer (unless agreed authorised absence) within a 24-hour period of absence.
In situations where safeguarding concerns arise, our Home Manager and Support Workers will attend all case conferences, strategic meetings, and core group meetings, and provide a full written report stipulating date/time of the safeguarding concerns to social workers, placement officers and Children Safeguarding Team.
- All our accommodation for young people is of quality standard. We regularly assess our housing conditions and enforce any new housing standards, observe category 1, and category 2 hazards regulations (included in part 1 of the Housing Act, 2004) which prescribes a method for calculating the seriousness of hazards comprising the likelihood of harm occurring and the severity of the harm if it were to occur in the home. Yvonne Lewis manages all properties in multiple occupation in accordance with the management of Homes in multiple occupation (England Regulations 2006, and related England Regulations 2007).
For our young people who may be experiencing mental health challenges, we will work closely with CAMHS to notify Nottingham Mental Health Assessment Teams to carry out an evaluation of the young person, where necessary under the Mental Health Act 1983.
- A quality and safe accommodation improves the lives of young people, consequently increasing their social value. Yvonne Lewis will provide employment and training for local residents. Part or our support to young people includes assistance with securing a place in college to further their education, job search skills, employment, training, and development for service users. As part of our social value, we are involved in sponsoring local events, like school sports events, inviting a qualified chef to give free cooking lessons to our young people, and inviting a careers advisor to give a talk on potential career paths for our young people.
- Yvonne Lewis respects and complies with supported housing industry standards of staff working hours. Our staff work on contract for 25-hours part-time or 40-hours full/time. We pay our staff attractive rates of salary above national minimum standards. All support staff have a full comprehensive employment contract that stipulates our equality and diversity practices within the workplace. Our staff also have monthly one-on-one appraisal meetings with their line managers to ensure continued performance management.
We strongly believe that an employee who is content, respected and well treated will remain loyal and committed to their employer, increase high retention rate, and consequently ensure stability of staff and increase engagement of the young people in our services.