Communicator Guide Services
Communicator Guides are highly trained staff who provide support to enable deafblind people to achieve maximum fulfilment and independence by assisting them to meet their own needs. Comunicator Guides will enable deafblind people through the provision of communication support and guiding to undertake shopping trips, leisure and social acitivities, health appointments, education and work placements. Support can also be provided from Communicator Guides to enable deafblind people to make their own decisions and choices by providing information that is easy to understand. This can apply to correspondance, bills and arranging appointments.
Communicator Guides are supplied by Deafblind UK through contracts with local authorities as part of individual care plans, through the Supporting People initiative and through direct payments and self funded schemes.
Residential Home Support
Deafblind UK provides support for some deafblind people who live in residential care homes. This support will be in addition to that provided by care home staff and will be in place to ensure that deafblind people do not become isolated within the home. Deafblind UK staff will be contracted by the deafblind person's local authority to provide a specific number of hours support a week to enable the deafblind person to communicate within the care home and in some cases to provide a Communicator Guide Service to activities outside of the home.
Supported Accomodation
Deafblind UK runs one supported accomodation unit which is situated in Peterborough and currently provides accomodation for 16 deafblind people. Please contact Deafblind UK for an application form and eligibility details if you would be interested in our Supported Accomodation or are enquring on behalf of a client or family member.
New Initiatives
Independent Living Teams
The idea behind Independent Living Teams is that deafblind people often require more than one type of support to maintain an independent lifestyle. Often these services are delivered by different agencies or different departments within a single organisation. To improve the quality of the services we deliver and to ensure that such services are both efficient and effective we intend to deliver a range of services using an Independent Living Team where staff within a single team are trained and able to deliver a variety of different services to customers. The types of services this team will be able to offer will be Communicator Guides, Homecare, Supported Housing, Rehabilitation Services and Interpreter Services.
Groups
We are looking to develop a number of social groups within England and Wales and are currently researching possible means of funding this initiative.
