Sunday, 06 December 2009

• Being Complacent in Communication

  An easy trap to fall in and we all do it.
  
  When our children have high levels of support and thrive staff can become complacent (and of course funding issues can play a part) support is reduced and then people wonder why they are not coping so well. Crystal Jigsaw’s daughter is doing well with support as is my 4 year old nephew with his early intervention; they are threatening to reduce both their hours.
  
  Even as parents we do it. C recently gave me a sharp reminder of this. I’ve been taking him on the London Eye for a while now which he loves. A couple of months ago on our way to the Eye because of engineering works our journey had to change and I didn’t heed the early warning behavior signs and use any proactive strategies, all I could do was react when it was too late, but C was too far gone and there was nothing I could do. I’m sorry C.   
  
  

  Green – calm and relaxed
  Amber – anxious
  Red – incident
  Blue – calm down but may reignite
  

  
  We have been back on the Eye with the moral support of a blog friend – thank you Mother X and boys.
  
  Staff can also become complacent about people’s behavior. In Cs case I’ve heard staff say C self injures because that’s what he does. They don’t expect anything else. Not - why don’t we look at why he’s doing it and address it. Thankfully Cs new home are not complacent about this and have realized sometimes he actually causes himself pain (after the London Eye incident he had concussion for a week) and through using a version of the Abbey Pain scale. Which can be found at Dis Dat (as C can’t use pain pictures) they were able to monitor how he was feeling.
  
  

  
  

  
  
  The CQC are implementing new regulations next year across all adult health and social care services. They have done a huge public consultations and are still consulting with various groups – carers being one of them. From this - services are to be more (the ‘in’ words are!) transparent and accountable to everyone, carers will be more involved (if they want to be) even when their person leaves home. I have therefore approached C’s service provider and suggested they start a relatives group to benefit their residents and staff and ensure good practice and hopefully no one will fall into the complacency trap. They have readily agreed.
  
  Have you any stories of complacency and/or how to avoid it? 
  

  

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