Our My Future Care Buddy Service offers training and ongoing support to organisations wishing to help the people they support make plans for later and end of life.
We have trained staff or volunteers at organisations throughout the UK to be My Future Care Buddies and the My Future Care Handbook as a source of information and structure for their conversations. Thanks to grant funding we’ve been able to supply training and ongoing support free to many of them, including free Handbooks for the people they go on to help.
One of the first organisations to sign up was Sage House a specialist dementia hub in Tangmere, West Sussex. We caught up with Natasha Davies and Judith Sotes recently to find out how they’re using the My Future Care Handbook to provide tailored support to their customers
Q: What kind of support does Sage House provide?
A: We provide the latest support, information, advice and activities to people living with dementia and their families. We bring local services together under one roof to offer our customers individually tailored support throughout their dementia journey.
Our Wayfinding service allows everyone entering Sage House to talk to a professional for essential one-to-one support and advice. Our Wayfinders are familiar and friendly faces who support people living with dementia, their families, friends and carers. They can work with people from pre-diagnosis (when they notice dementia symptoms) and remain a named contact through all the dementia stages.
Q: How is the My Future Care Buddy Service helping you to meet people’s needs?
A: Our Wayfinding team is delivering a two-session Buddy workshop for 12 individuals. We are working with five couples and two single participants and the first session took place in April. We covered an introduction to the My Future Care Handbook, setting your priorities, and writing a bucket list. We also invited solicitors to discuss Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPAs) and other legal matters. Following the first session, we assigned the group the task of working on their priority lists.
To provide motivation and ongoing support, the Wayfinder who hosted the workshop is following up via phone call with each participant six weeks after the initial session. The second session will take place a further six weeks later, in July. At this session, we will review what has been achieved so far and focus on the remaining sections in the Handbook, including ReSPECT forms, funeral planning, and letters of wishes.
By hosting group sessions, we can accommodate more people within the allocated time, while also allowing participants to benefit from peer support as well as Wayfinding assistance. Using the My Future Care Handbook, the support is more task-oriented and focused on productive outcomes.
After the final session, we will collect feedback and share the outcomes achieved. One of the attendees has already told us that she has actively started working on the Handbook with our support. She said she had actually purchased it a year ago but had been unable to start without our assistance.
Q: Would you recommend training as a My Future Care Buddy?
A: The Buddy training provided a useful understanding and introduction to the Handbook and enabled us to develop a framework for our workshops.
The Padlet resource (the My Future Care online resource hub) now also provides ongoing support with talks coming up on specific aspects of the Handbook. It will be useful to be able to access these as and when required.
.Thank you Natasha and Judith for sharing your story!
We are excited to support you as you continue to develop your workshop offer and find creative ways to tailor your My Future Care support to people’s individual circumstances and needs.
Would you like to upskill your team to help others meet their future care and later life goals? Discover how the My Future Care Buddy Service can help you support people to plan for tomorrow and live for today!
My Future Care is a project run by Mycarematters 2020 CIC, a not-for-profit community interest company.
