Statement of Purpose

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	Statement of Purpose
1.	Open Choice will provide short or long term housing with support for young people and adults, set within comfortable self contained flats in and around the Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire areas. Open Choice offers a 24 hour advice & guidance line. The main objective is to promote independent living while offering the promotion of employment, further education and training, household living skills, socialization, confidence building and step by step programmes centred on the individual.
2.	Open Choice will provide individualized programmes designed to meet young peoples' individual needs. This will include self-contained accommodation with support and daily staff advice. The programmes will include: Health education; Registering with a doctor and dentist; Sex education including contraception and preparing for parenthood; Safety in the home and first aid; Shopping, preparing food to achieve a balanced diet; Knowledge of emergency services and how to summon help from Open Choice ; The cost of living are including household budgeting, regular payment of bills and avoiding credit; How to carry out basic household maintenance; General house keeping including sewing, mending and laundry; Applying for housing, locating and maintaining it; Job applications and interviews; Contacting social services and other agencies; Social security benefits; Obtaining advice and making a complaint; Contacting registered agencies and groups specialising in young people who are in care; Using resources within the community; Roles of agencies e.g. citizens advice.
2.1	Offender Programme, Mental Health Programme, Young mums to be programme and a learning difficulty programme .Please see website www.openchoiceproject.com
3.	The Open Choice management team consist of one male and one female, with a further part time female who is of a voluntary position.
3.1	The qualifications held by the service manager are a diploma in counselling, studio's one, two and three in the management of challenging behaviour certificate. Certificates in Human Rights & Pace modules. In the near future, I will be studying for an outdoor activity instructor's award. (Ex Leaving Care Worker-Case Load)
3.2	The voluntary member of the management team has a 2.1 criminal justice degree, an NVQ level 3 in caring for adults with learning disabilities and is also an NVQ Assessor. Now training for NVQ4.
3.3	The third member of the team has an NVQ 3 in caring for children and young people, and is studying for NVQ Assessor.(Ex Leaving Care Worker Case Load)
4.0	The overall management experience includes challenging behaviour, mental health, counselling, Learning Difficulties & criminal justice (especially with young offenders), youth work, service delivery experience, housing management and homelessness. Collectively the management team have worked with young people and adults for over four decades. All staff will have monthly supervision which is confidential and will be recorded and kept on their personal files. Open Choice as it grows will require all staff to be actively engaged in bringing about improvements whether in terms of client development or service delivery. As we develop and grow our service we will be able to offer our staff more opportunities to develop and grow with us. We value and promote our staffs experience and skills and we are pro active in their development and training. The structure of Open Choice Independence Ltd will be set around a number of full time and part time members of staff - a full time service manager and a full time Project manger with 24 hour advice cover.
4.1	Open Choice will provide a service to male and female clients between the ages of 16years and upwards. Due to the accommodation we will be accessing through the private sector, it is highly unlikely that we could accommodate severely disabled people however this would depend on availability.
4.2	Admission to Open Choice will be through referrals from Children, Schools and Families or Leaving Care Teams, Youth Offending Teams, Mental Health teams and learning difficulty teams, including ACS. Open Choice seeks to provide individual accommodation for one client to live independently with our daily support.
5.	Our philosophy is that young people and adults often need to be assisted to make positive and responsible choices within their own lives. We would seek to help them with this and in particular to have their say in their own Placement Reviews. Clients who move on from Open Choice should be able to take with them positive memories of their period of life in which we were involved.
6.	Open Choice will always liaise with our clients social worker/or leaving care worker and also other important people in their lives, we will work positively to carry out and develop the client abilities. Our clients will always be treated with respect and in our experience this will be reciprocated. (We believe that it is possible to deal with difficult behaviour without resorting to secure units in many situations by use of our specialised approach).
6.1	Once a person is able to function in a more normalised environment what choices are there in terms of resources in which to move them on? Open Choice wants to provide these choices. We will also continue to offer specialised services for those that need this and we will continue to develop the range of additional services available to support these placements.
6.2	Open Choice will protect and promote the health of our clients ensuring daily contact, providing information, assisting with accessing health care and liaising with the other professionals who are involved in their life. Open Choice will advise its clients to continue their education and promote further education and training. We will work alongside the Connexions service for young people and endeavour to have an allocated connexions worker for each client.
6.3	Open Choice does encourage each of its clients to participate in a weekly recreational or sporting activity. More frequent activities will be negotiated with Children, Schools, Families and ACS. Clients needs in relation to their race, culture and religion should be respected and we would seek to provide for these.
6.4	Open Choice will consult with each client on the service being provided to them on a daily basis. This will take place through daily contact and visits to each client, which will consist of 2/3 hours per day, Monday to Friday (min) subject to our client's participation to the advice being offered. Clients will have access to an advice/support line during evenings and weekends.
6.5	Open Choice has no policies or procedures on control and restraint. This has been made clear to Children, Schools and Families and ACS that we will not control or restrain ANY people who we provide a service for.
7.	If a client becomes destructive then staff will discuss their behaviour and the implications with them. In the event of a serious misdemeanour (e.g. damage to property), the client would either be given the means to repair the damage or if that is not possible they would be expected to contribute to the cost of the repair. Violence towards staff is not acceptable; it could jeopardise the placement and result in prosecution. ANY incidents will be recorded in the daily log and on personal files. This recording will form the basis of weekly checks by senior staff and regular management meetings. A client may be excluded with sufficient notice if A)-their needs cannot be met. B)- the placement has consistently broken down, or C)- there is a serious concern about the potential for significant harm to our client or others.
7.1	Open Choice has policies and procedures for child protection issues. All child protection issues will be immediately passed on to the service manager who will then liaise with the investigating social work team or the emergency duty team if it is outside of normal working hours. (If a serious incident occurs that requires a prompt police response then the service manager will call 999. Anyone reporting a concern will be supported by a senior member of staff).
7.2	Bullying will not be tolerated and will be dealt with via Open Choice's anti bullying policy and procedure.
7.3	Open Choice has a policy and procedure for staff to follow when a client is missing. The service manger should be informed straight away. The police must be contacted and the clients social work team. The emergency duty team will be informed if this occurs outside of normal working hours. The incident will be recorded and kept on the clients file; also a copy will be sent to the social work team or emergency duty team. When the client returns, the police, social work team and/or emergency team will be informed.
7.4	Each accommodation provided by Open Choice will be fitted with smoke detectors and a fire blanket. These will be checked weekly by staff when a health and safety checklist form is being completed by staff.
7.5	All clients will be provided with a service which is appropriate to their needs and which is sensitive to their race, culture, religion, gender and ability. If appropriate, specific support shall be sought for clients in relation to their ethnic needs. Open Choice is aware of the need for Pathway Plans to reflect choices relating to ethnic origin, beliefs, religion and personal choice.
8.	The arrangements for clients to have contact with their parents, relatives and friends will be agreed in the pathway plan and placement reviews. Every effort will be made to include the cost of contact arrangements within the standard fee, although this may not be possible if the distance is too great and the frequency makes this costly.
9.	Open Choice has a complaints policy and procedure which all service users and staff will be made aware of. All complaints will be listened to seriously and reported to the service manager. All clients will be provided with a list of contacts that they may access a complaint through. This list will be issued at the start of our work.
10.	Open Choice will review the client's placement plans on a three-monthly basis. The reviews will only be conducted if the client is present. The client will always be encouraged to express their wishes, feelings and needs.
11.	The accommodation offered by Open Choice will be furnished, one bedroom, self contained flats or bed-sit from the private sector in Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire areas, depending on where the client needs to be placed. This accommodation will be for the sole use of the client who is provided with a service by Open Choice.
12.	Open Choice has an Anti Discriminatory Policy as part of the Equality and Diversity Policy. All clients will be encouraged and supported to challenge attitudes and behaviours, which are discriminatory or racist, in a sensitive manner. Discriminatory attitudes and behaviours are not acceptable and will be recorded and reported to the service manager. Our clients have the right to personal choice relating to race, culture, religion and beliefs.
13.	All staff will respect the rights of the client they work with and will work within the Human Rights Act to ensure that our clients are protected e.g. Every ones right to life shall be protected by law; No one shall be subjected to degrading treatment and Every one has the right to liberty and security of person.
14.	Open Choice is operating for the benefit of its clients and aims to guide each individual onto their chosen future path.
15.	Open Choice is now widening its services, i.e., Narrow Boat, Cottage in the Lake District / New Forrest & Centre parks. The additional services are for the purpose of Activity Assessment Breaks. Please see the website (WWW.OpenChoiceProject.com) for details.