We can’t quite believe that YourHomeCare is now 4!

Since our birth during the Covid pandemic and lockdown, we have gone from strength to strength.

What’s happened since our 3^rd birthday?

We continue to strive to be the very best and everything we do. We have our highest numbers of staff members and our highest number of clients. We are so thankful and so proud that so many people choose us to be a part of their everyday lives.

Your Home Care Awards 2023

We held our very first awards ceremony. We wanted to give something back to our homecare assistants and give them the recognition they deserve.

A lot of thought went into the categories and how these would be voted for. We wanted both the team to support and vote for their colleagues, as well as our clients in the community to give their thanks and appreciation too.

We decided that we would have 3 “Carer of the Year” awards, for the 3 most voted homecare assistants, voted for by staff. Then we have our “Mansfield Carer of the Year” and our “Ashfield Carer of the Year”, which our clients voted for. Overall, everyone had a fantastic afternoon. There were lots of Christmas jumpers, Christmas music and once the awards were done, time for everyone to eat, drink and chat, and get into the Christmas spirit.

Recognising our teams hard work and dedication to us is really important and we’ll always say thank you and give praise where it’s always deserved. We hope to be able to do our awards again and really spoil our team and give them a day that’s all about them.

You can read more about the day, here: Your Home Care Awards 2023

Our new Registered Care Manager, Harriett.

Harriett has worked for some outstanding companies and acquired invaluable experience and skills that she

says have shaped her into an effective and compassionate leader. The knowledge and experience she has gained, we know will be transferrable and allow Harriett to help us grow whilst continuing to provide the best care to our clients.

Harriett has been successful in building fantastic relationships with both staff and clients. She is often seen getting out in the community and doing care visits herself; she has brought some wonderful ideas on how we can continue to be Outstanding. She brings calm and reason to the office and has become our Mental Health First Aider.

Harriett has fast become an asset to the company and we’re pleased to have her onboard.

Monthly Rise visits

The Rise Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire team have been visiting our offices on a monthly basis, to deliver their brilliant adapted sports programmes.

We are always looking for ways to improve the services that we offer our clients and this fits the bill perfectly.

It’s great to see our clients outside of their home; we’re helping to keep them active and social.

RISE activity leaders bring all of their equipment into our offices for a 45 minute session of fun and laughter. So far, we have played tennis, rugby and hockey. This is after a sports themed quiz to get our brains ticking! Each participants gets a sticker for taking part and they also have a RISE trophy.

RISE adapted sports programmes have so many benefits to participants such as maintaining their balance, their motor skills, helping promote endorphins and dopamine for better mental health and well-being. You can read more about the benefits of the sessions by clicking on the following links:

Rise | Raising Spirits, Reaching Goals

RISE to the occasion – seated sports for Your Home Care. – Your Home Care

You can also see more of their sessions on their social media channels:

(20+) Facebook

Rise.Life Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire (@rise.life.notts.derbys) • Instagram photos and videos

Introducing, Call4Care wristbands

We are now offering our clients digital wristbands, to give extra peace of mind, With an SOS button, fall detection, GPS tracking and FlawlessConnectTM technology linking to a Friends & Family App, you and your family and friends can have reassurance that you can maintain independence and stay active whilst remaining safe.

You can make calls and talk through the wristband, so there’s no need to worry about not being near a phone. With automatic fall detection, there’s no need to press the button to make an emergency call. You can have multiple contacts and your wristband will try calling them all simultaneously, saving valuable time in the event of an emergency. Your wristband doesn’t fall for voicemails either, so will continue to call until it recognises a real voice has answered.

If there is no answer from any of your contacts, the wristband will then call through to a Response Centre Operative, who are available 24/7 and who will then be able to offer the appropriate support.

The GPS tracking will allow your family and friends to see exactly where you are, in the event that you do need help, so you can continue enjoying yourself outside of your home and know that you’re still safe. There is also a function to set a “

geo-fence” whereby you create an area that the user should be in and a notification will be sent if they leave that area.

The wristband also has many optional features such as health readings such as blood pressure,

heart rate, blood oxygen and body temperature, and will store these for your family and friends to view on the app. You can also set alarms on the watch to remind you to take any medications up to 3 times per day.

You can read much more about the wristbands on our leaflet: Call4Care

The exciting news also made our local news!: Chad.co.uk

We are confident that the introduction of these wristbands will be life changing for many of our existing and new clients.

Our trip to Skegness

Jane did a fantastic job of organising a fully paid for trip to the seaside for out clients. We had a visit to the arcades where we enjoyed throwing our 2p’s into the machines, playing basketball and bingo.

We stopped for lunch at Hussey’s and all enjoyed a delicious fish & chips. After lunch we took a stroll down the seafront and got ice cream.

The homecare assistants who joined us – Ebony, Elaine, Claire and Leanne – volunteered their day off to assist our clients, to make sure they had a memorable day. Each of them has since said what a lovely day they had themselves and what a pleasure it was to see our clients smiling.

News of the brilliant day has travelled far and wide and we’ve even appeared in the local newspaper: Mansfield Chad

We are so very proud to have such a wonderful team who work together tirelessly – both homecare assistants and office staff – to put smile’s on our clients faces and go above and beyond to really make a difference to their lives and provide memorable experiences like this.

Top 20 award, again!

It goes without saying that this award could not have been achieved for the 4^th year running, without the amazing team that we have. With all of the challenges they face, our team really have proved that they don’t just care for a living: they genuinely do care about our clients. They provide exceptional care at all times, and we couldn’t be prouder. They even volunteer their days off to spend more time with our clients when we take them on days out, for example, our most recent day trip to Skegness.

We also must thank our wonderful clients’ and their families for their kind words, as without taking the time to submit those reviews, we simply wouldn’t have been recognised for the award. They put their trust in us to provide the Outstanding care that we promise. We will continue to do everything we can to support you and your loved ones, for as long as you need us. The certificate sits proudly in our office (with the THREE previous years!) and is another accolade to go alongside our CQC rating of Outstanding.

 Carers Roadshow

For the last couple of years, we’ve taken part in the Carers Roadshow, organised by volunteers. This year we attended the Sutton and the Mansfield events. It’s a free event for organisations such as local authorities, the NHS, care companies and any others, who can give free advice to the elderly and vulnerable of the community.

Ashfield Wellbeing Events

These events are organised by lead adult social workers of Ashfield District Council. We attended the Leamington and Hucknall leg of these events. They are free to attend and aim to provide a fun yet informative day for the local community. They are attended by care companies, the NHS, Ashfield Fire and Rescue, education companies, and so many more. There’s always lots to do for families and children by way of entertainment as well.

Mansfield Woodhouse “by the sea”

Harriett and Aimee attended this popular event this year. Organised by Mansfield District Council and Friends of Yeomans Park, the event is always very well attended by the public. There was a huge variety of stalls giving out information, freebies and food. There was plenty of entertainment for people of all ages, with live music and children’s entertainers. Aimee even won on the raffle! This is the 2^nd year we’ve attended this event and it’s always a fun one.

 

Ashfield Show

For the first time ever, this event was over 3 days! We chose to attend on the Saturday and couldn’t believe how well turned out it was! Paul, Tayla and Harriett attended this one and had a brilliant day. There’s a huge variety of stalls that attend; there’s a funfair with rides suitable for all ages; there’s a stage with live performances and shows running throughout the day, and even a dog show. It was busy, with us completing over 100 health checks. We gave out plenty of sweets, stickers and pens. It was lovely to chat to so many people about our services and our employment opportunities.

4^th Birthday barbecue party

One of the events we most look forward to – along with our awards ceremony – is our birthday party! The last 2 years, we’ve had a barbecue in our head office car park. This year, we tried to go one bigger and invited our wonderful clients to join in on the fun; after all, we wouldn’t be here today without them. We had some wonderful food on the barbecue, courtesy of Scott and Paul. There was lots of singing, dancing and laughing. We played Connect4 and did some colouring. We even had a bouncy castle from Greenfrog Entertainment for the children who came. The weather was on our side again and gave us a cool breeze along side the sun. It was lovely to see our clients outside of their home and seeing them having a wonderful time with newfound friends. They reminisced about their days, talked fondly of their families and held hands whilst singing songs from their generation.

A final note from us…

…as we go into our 5^th year of service. We are incredibly proud of the community we have built. We have wonderful staff and amazing clients who make all of this possible. Everything we do – whether it’s organising days out, providing extra staff training or bringing in new technology – we do it all to better our services and subsequently better our clients lives. It really is at the core of everything we do.

We’re so very grateful that we can do this for another year, with our team, supported by our clients and their families.

Thank you. Here’s to another year!