Search results for ‘Subject term:"learning disabilities"’ Sort:
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Investment in staff empowers service users
- Author:
- REED John
- Journal article citation:
- Care Plan, 3(2), December 1996, pp.16-19.
- Publisher:
- Positive Publications/ Anglia Polytechnic University, Faculty of Health and Social Work
Northern Life Care, a private company providing a variety of accommodation and community support for people with learning disabilities, is showing how the independent sector can provide individualised services through a commitment to staff and service users. Explains how the company has developed and describes a vision of future services.
Future directions for research on staff performance in services for people with learning disabilities
- Authors:
- HASTINGS R.P., REMINGTON B., HATTON C.
- Journal article citation:
- Mental Handicap Research, 8(4), 1995, pp.333-339.
- Publisher:
- BIMH Publications
Provides a conclusion to this special issue on staff in services for people with learning disabilities by looking at future directions for research.
Senior manager decision‐making and interactions with frontline staff in intellectual disability organisations: a Delphi study
- Authors:
- DEVEAU Roy, GORE Nick, McGILL Peter
- Journal article citation:
- Health and Social Care in the Community, 28(1), 2020, pp.81-90.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Very little is known of the activities of the most senior managers in organisations providing social care in the community to people with intellectual disabilities. Yet the importance of the focus and activities of senior managers in directing and supporting staff practice and staff experiences is likely to be central to an organisation's functioning and support provided for staff and service users. This study employed Delphi methodology with a panel of 11 senior managers, mostly chief executives, managing small to very large organisations providing support for people with intellectual disabilities, in the UK. Answering three rounds of questions, senior managers described their face‐to‐face and non‐face‐to‐face contacts with staff and decision‐making. Narrative data were subject to quantitative and thematic analysis. In the last round, themes were subject to quantitative analysis. Most contacts between senior managers and staff were in formal structured contexts and all managers used social media to promote the organisations' ambitions regarding good practice. The panel focused upon accessing and understanding the informal aspects of their organisations and staff factors. Decisions were both short‐term reactive and long‐term strategic and an effort to link these was felt to improve organisational functioning. A framework for understanding senior managers' activities emerged showing two sources of demands and opportunity, extra‐organisational focused upon meeting legal and regulatory demands and intra‐organisational focused upon understanding and influencing informal staff practices/experiences and cultures within their organisations. (Edited publisher abstract)
Providing end-of-life care in disability community living services: an organizational capacity-building model using a public health approach
- Authors:
- GRINDROD Andrea, RUMBOLD Bruce
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 30(6), 2017, pp.1125-1137.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Background: There is broad consensus within the disability field that the end-of-life care offered to people with intellectual disabilities should be of a quality consistent with that advocated by contemporary palliative care. In practice, however, various barriers are encountered when applying palliative care strategies to the end-of-life care of people with intellectual disabilities, particularly those in disability community living services. Methods: A mixed-methods approach was used. Quantitative data were gathered through a survey of disability support staff working in government-managed community living services in the Australian state of Victoria. These quantitative data informed the collection of qualitative data through focus groups and research interviews. A public health palliative care framework provided the basis for developing an organisational change model from the consolidated data. Results: There is a strong relationship between organisational structure and culture, and both influence end-of-life practice in community living services. Barriers to good practice arise from the differing attitudes of paid carers involved, and from uncoordinated approaches reflecting misaligned service systems in the disability and palliative care fields. Organisational reorientation is crucial to achieving sustainable change that will support healthy dying. Conclusions: End-of-life care requires the collaboration of disability and palliative care services, but for care to achieve palliative care goals, the collaboration must be led by disability services. The authors outline here an organisational model they have developed from public health principles to manage end-of-life care in community living services. (Edited publisher abstract)
Committed to change?: promoting the involvement of people with learning difficulties in staff recruitment
- Authors:
- TOWNSLEY Ruth, et al
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- Publication year:
- 2002
- Pagination:
- 72p.
- Place of publication:
- Bristol
The authors explain how they set up a training and development programme to promote the involvement of people with learning difficulties in staff recruitment. The report shows how practitioners and service users can be encouraged and supported to put research into action and to use research evidence to improve practice and promote change within their own organisations. The report explores the process of working with five organisations to implement user involvement in staff recruitment and examines: the four main steps of the 'Learning to choose staff' training and development programme; how the project team supported people with learning difficulties, support workers, managers and policy makers to work and learn together; and the strategies used by participants to promote, change and develop practice and policy relating to user involvement in choosing staff.
Staff activity in supported housing services
- Authors:
- FELCE David, LOWE Kathy, JONES Edwin
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 15(4), December 2002, pp.388-403.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Variation in staff performance between small community housing services indicates the need for research on the factors which predict high-quality care. The associations between service sector, staffing levels, staff characteristics, internal organization or working practices, non-institutional milieu, and staff activity and the nature and extent of staff attention to residents were explored in a study of 10 statutory, 10 voluntary and nine private sector community housing schemes. There were few significant differences between sectors after differences in resident abilities were taken into account. Higher staff to resident ratios predicted greater resident receipt of attention and assistance but also a lower proportion of time during which each member of staff was directly concerned with residents. A greater range in resident ability predicted lower resident receipt of attention and assistance. A higher proportion of qualified staff was not shown to be a positive attribute but greater prior experience was associated with staff spending more time directly concerned with residents, less time doing 'other' activity and residents receiving more assistance. Measures of the internal organization and non-institutional milieu of the settings were not strongly related to staff activity.
Stressors, coping strategies and stress-related outcomes among direct care staff in staffed houses for people with learning disabilities
- Authors:
- HATTON Chris, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Mental Handicap Research, 8(4), 1995, pp.252-271.
- Publisher:
- BIMH Publications
Self-reported stressors, coping strategies and stress-related out-comes were explored among direct-care staff working in two networks of small staffed houses for people with learning disabilities. Reports on the research methods used and the conclusions drawn from the investigation.
Experimental effects of manipulating attributional information about challenging behaviour
- Authors:
- NOONE Stephen J., et al
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 16(4), December 2003, pp.295-301.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
The informal staff culture in intellectual disability services has been proposed as a significant factor determining staff perceptions of, and responses towards, challenging behaviours. However, research to date has been exclusively descriptive. Methods An experimental analogue of one potentially salient aspect of staff informal culture, the causal language used to describe challenging behaviours, was developed. Naïve participants (N = 84 students) rated attributional dimensions and optimism after viewing a video of aggressive behaviour. Participants were exposed to vignettes in which information about the behaviour's controllability and stability was manipulated prior to viewing the video. Results Controllability and stability manipulations affected later perception of dimensions of causal attributions (e.g. behaviour presented as controllable was rated as caused by factors more likely to be internal to the depicted client), and optimism (e.g. behaviour presented as stable was associated with a less positive perception of potential for change). Conclusion Staff talk in intellectual disability services, especially language communicating causal information, is likely to affect perceptions of subsequent incidents of challenging behaviours. This may have important implications for the treatment and assessment of challenging behaviour. Further research is needed to replicate and extend the findings of this study and also to contribute to the development of external validity.
Investigating organisational culture: a comparison of a 'high' and a 'low' performing residential unit for people with intellectual disabilities
- Authors:
- GILLERT Elizabeth, STENFERT-KROESE Biza
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 16(4), December 2003, pp.279-284.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
This pilot study investigates organisational culture in small community-based residential services for people with intellectual disabilities, one of the under-researched determinants of staff behaviour and performance. Staff performance is of primary importance in the provision of quality services. Two matched residential units were assessed using COMPASS: A Multi-Perspective Evaluation of Quality in Home Life, and identified as 'high' and 'low' performing. The organisational culture of the units was assessed using the Organisational Culture Inventory in order to investigate any associations. The unit with better quality outcomes demonstrated a more positive organizational culture overall, with statistically significant lower scores on three negatively influential cultural styles, namely, oppositional, competitive and perfectionistic. There may well be a meaningful relationship between organisational culture and quality outcomes, although the nature of this relationship is far from clear. The continuation of investigations into organisational culture is encouraged
Association between the provision characteristics and operation of supported housing services and resident outcomes
- Authors:
- FELCE David, LOWE Kathy, JONES Edwin
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 15(4), December 2002, pp.404-418.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Variation in outcome between community housing services indicates the need for research on the factors that predict quality of life. The associations between service sector, staffing levels, staff characteristics, internal organization, non-institutional milieu, staff activity, the nature and extent of staff attention to residents and a range of resident outcomes were explored in a study of 10 statutory, 10 voluntary and nine private sector community housing schemes. There were no significant differences between sectors after differences in resident abilities were taken into account. Smaller residence size was associated with lower resident engagement in activity, and did not predict social or community integration. Higher staff to resident ratios predicted lower resident participation in household tasks but a greater frequency of community activities. A higher proportion of qualified staff was not shown to be a positive attribute. Measures of the internal organization of the settings were not strongly related to outcome. Residents receiving more attention from staff predicted greater participation in domestic activities and residents receiving more assistance from staff predicted higher engagement in activity.