The Companion - April Edition

Home Instead

YORK newsletter

companion THE

Check out our website: www.caregiver support.co.uk

April 2021

! r e t s a E y p p Ha

Photo by Aleksandr Eremin on Unsplash.com

And finally, a big thank you to all of you working over the Easter period, we really do appreciate all your hard work – As a small thank you from us and to wish you all a Happy Easter, we have ordered some bunches of Daffodils for you to collect, they will be available in the office from Monday 29th March.

Photos by Tim Gouw and Annie Spratt Unsplash.com

We hope you all have a fantastic Easter. Hopefully, this will be the last holiday period where we cannot spend it with our loved ones. Whatever you’re up to, stay safe, enjoy the time and tuck into as many chocolate eggs as you possibly can (you all deserve it after this last year!)

Get out into your garden!

You may have seen our advert on ITV sponsoring Love Your Garden recently.

To celebrate and encourage you and your clients to get out into your garden, we have enclosed in with every printed copy of this month’s editions of The Companion & The Elder, some sunflower

seeds for you to plant.

We would love to see some photos of you and your clients planting the seeds, and any growth pictures of the flowers along the way!

Send any photos to jack.fisher@hiscyork.co.uk or add them to the facebook group!

Growing Tips

10cm space between each seed.

3. Place the seed in carefully, cover them up with soil and water the seeds gently. As they grow, if the plants are crowded, thin them out to about 45cm apart leaving the strongest, tallest plants.

4. Be careful, as slugs and snails like to eat the new shoots. You may like to protect the seedlings by cutting the top off a plastic bottle and placing it over your seedlings.

5. As your sunflower begins to grow taller, you will need to help support the stem, by placing a cane near the stem and loosely tying the cane to the plant with string.

6. Watch your sunflower grow and grow and remember to send us your photos along the way!

Growing conditions Sunflowers like to grow in full sun in well drained soil.

When to grow Sunflowers are mainly sown

from mid-April to the end of May. They are an annual plant and will flower in August.

How to grow 1. Sunflowers can be sown straight in to the ground where they are going to flower, so make sure the space you are going to sow is weed free, by using a trowel to remove the weeds.

2. Rake the soil to a fine tilth (a fine crumbly texture) and make some drills 12mm deep. Leave a

Farewell wishes to Daphne

“I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at Home Instead the 6 years have just flown by. I just want to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you, to all the CAREGivers and the office team that continue to make a huge difference to the lives of our clients and their families during an incredibly difficult time. I am looking forward to having more time in the garden this summer and maybe a long holiday when we are allowed!…“

I will miss you all.

I’m sad to share the news that our General Manager, Daphne, will be retiring on 30th April. I am sure you will all join me in wishing Daphne well for her retirement.

Daphne joined Home Instead in 2015 and she has made a valuable contribution to our organisation in the 6 years she has been leading the team. I have personally learned a lot from her, so I am extremely grateful for what she has done during her time as General Manager.

We are at a point with Home Instead in York and in Scarborough and Ryedale where, although we have been providing our service for 12 years now, there is still plenty of opportunity to grow and improve.

I am as passionate as ever about building an outstanding service and a successful business, so Daphne’s retirement seemed like an opportunity to get more closely involved with the business I started in 2008. I am some way off retirement myself and there is lots more

I want to achieve for Home Instead, so you may well see more of me around the office. Hopefully, the office will become more accessible in the months ahead as the restrictions relax.

As our two offices grow in York and Scarborough, we will increasingly share resources across the two offices.

For example, Jack already takes responsibility for the marketing and finance of both.

In this vein, I am pleased to let you know that Karen Skouras will be taking up a new role as ‘Head of People’ for Home Instead York and Home Instead Scarborough and Ryedale. In this role she will be responsible for recruitment, training and HR support for the team. Hopefully, you are already aware that Karen Leaf recently joined us as Training and Development Co-ordinator and is part of Karen Skouras’s team. You’ll be hearing more from Karen as she develops the training calendar for the year ahead.

Luke,

Care Quality Commission (CQC) – What Outstanding Means Safe ■ Effective ■ Caring ■ Responsive ■ Well-Led As you know we are an outstanding organisation, and this is the formal definition from CQC. ‘Your staff are delivering an exceptional and innovative service with a culture that considers imaginative ways to manage risk and increase people’s opportunities. You are exceeding the requirements of the fundamental standards and constantly monitoring and reviewing your performance. Care workers are supported to find creative ways to support people to live a full life and can build strong relationships with service users and their families.’

We think that as an organisation we do much of this in bucket loads espically when we hear from you about the fantastic things you enable your clients to do. Keep posting your pictures and let’s make sure the CQC recognises Home Instead as ‘outstanding’ once again.

We’ve been given a really exciting opportunity to work with a local Film-Maker, Big Ian and we would love for you and your Clients to be involved.

Ian will be creating a series of professional videos for us over the course of the next few months, covering a range of different topics, from Client testimonials, to a ‘morning in the life of a CAREGiver/ Client’.

We are looking for a handful

of CAREGivers and Clients to be featured in some of the videos.

Recording is likely to take place in April/May time, with a maximum time requirement from you of only a few hours.

So, if you’d like to do something different, have a bit of fun and get paid for your time, drop me an email and I will give you a few more details - jack.fisher@hiscyork.co.uk I hope you will join us in being involved in this exciting opportunity!

Introducing new ACM’s Were delighted to welcome two new staff to the office team. Angela Steer and Kerry Fraser have joined us as our Assistant Care Managers and will support both Kerry and Lorna in their Care Manager roles.

Angela & Kerry both have lots of experience of working in home care and have been completing all the required training to understand the different parts of our business. Their role will be to support both clients and CAREGivers in the community, building relationships and ensuring that we deliver the right care for our clients.

Once the restrictions on COVID ease they will spend much of their time out and about and we know they are both excited to start meeting everyone in the team.

Pictured: Angela Steer (left) and Kerry Fraser (right)

Photo by Sam McGhee on Unsplash.com

Opportunity to work with local Film-Maker

Parkinson’s Awareness Month April is Parkinson’s Awareness month, so we thought we would share some useful facts about Parkinson’s.

What is Parkinson’s?

What causes Parkinson’s?

Parkinson’s is a progressive neurological condition. This means that it causes problems in the brain and gets worse over time.

Around 145,000 people live with Parkinson’s in the UK. And it’s the fastest growing neurological condition in the world.

People with Parkinson’s don’t have enough of the chemical dopamine because some of the nerve cells that make it have died.

We don’t yet know exactly why people get Parkinson’s, but researchers think it’s a combination of age, genetic and environmental factors that cause the dopamine-producing nerve cells to die.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW ABOUT PARKINSON’S:

1

Parkinson’s develops when cells in the brain stop working properly and are lost over time. These brain cells produce a chemical called dopamine.

2 3

Symptoms start to appear when the brain can’t make enough dopamine to control movement properly.

There are 3 main symptoms - tremor (shaking), slowness of movement and rigidity (muscle stiffness) - but there are many other symptoms too.

How does Parkinson’s progress?

Parkinson’s affects everyone differently.

The symptoms someone might have and how quickly the condition develops will differ from one person to the next.

For many people, the condition can take years to progress to a point where it has a real impact on daily life.

How do symptoms progress?

The most common symptoms of Parkinson’s are tremor, rigidity (stiffness) and slowness of movement.

Not everyone with Parkinson’s experiences the same combination of symptoms – they vary from person to person.

Also, how Parkinson’s affects someone can change from day to day, and even from hour to hour. Symptoms that may be noticeable one day may not be a problem the next.

Many of the symptoms can be treated or managed with medication and therapies.

Many people with Parkinson’s lead active and fulfilling lives. An important part of coping with Parkinson’s is understanding how it affects you and how to work around it.

It may not always be easy to maintain a positive outlook, especially immediately after diagnosis. But at www.parkinsons.org.uk you can find help and support you need.

Source: www.parkinsons.org.uk

Access your payslip with Brightpay With effect from April 2021 the way in which you access your payslip will change.

You should have received an invitation to the new portal, Brightpay. This system can offer far more than the previous. Please accept the

invitation once you have received it as it may expire.

With the new system you should be able to access your personal information apart from the bank details. If you change address you can update your details using this and you

can also add in any other data.

The portal can be accessed on a PC and via a mobile app, both systems have the same options.

If you have any questions, drop Jack an email at jack.fisher@hiscyork.co.uk or call on 01904 690884.

Home Instead 10 Clifton Moor Business Village James Nicolson Link, Clifton Moor York YO30 4XG Telephone: 01904 690884 Email: info@hiscyork.co.uk Web: www.homeinstead.co.uk/york

Live well, your way with care at home

Safe ■ Effective ■ Caring ■ Responsive ■ Well-Led “Each Home Instead® franchise office is independently owned and operated.”