Translating humanistic principles into all aspects of our practice, we champion the humanistic approach to human development. Providing individually tailored psychotherapeutic programmes of support across services, our model differs from traditional models of supported living.
Alongside the individual we look holistically at all aspects of their life and target support in areas that will make a positive difference to their
development and autonomy. In this way individuals take ownership of their personal growth and capacity to lead a fulfilled and enriched life.
Valuing everyone for who they are and creating positive working relationships allows people to explore their identity and values individually and collectively, moving forward in areas that are important to them.
Our therapeutic team works across all services supporting our practitioners and clients to embed therapeutic approaches, encourage reflection of practice and develop skills. The team integrate a variety of models and approaches in order to tailor support to meet the unique needs of each individual. Humanistic principles guide all practice irrespective of approach used.
Humanism is the view that change comes from within, that everyone is unique and has their own valued perception and interpretation of events.
We train our staff in Gerard Egan’s Skilled Helper Approach, teaching basic counselling skills and learning key therapeutic skills to implement a person centred approach to practice.
The humanistic approach explains that for a person to grow, they need an environment that provides them with genuineness, acceptance and empathy.
Psychoeducation encompasses a broad range of activities that combine education and other activities such as evidence based therapeutic approaches. Psychoeducation is a means of providing people with information about the causes, symptoms, prognosis and treatments of their condition, with the view of equipping the individual with personal resources, knowledge or skills that can empower them to improve aspects of their life.
PBS is a person-centred and values based multicomponent framework for developing an understanding of behaviour that challenges rather than a single therapeutic approach, treatment or philosophy. (Gore 2013).
PBS is based on the assessment of the social and physical environment in which the behaviour of concern takes place and includes the views of the individual and everyone involved. This understanding is used to develop educational, proactive and respectful support strategies that are meaningful, helping to improve the quality of life for the person and others who are involved with them.
We work closely with a company called Psychesoma in all of our services. An outline of their work is included below:
“Our trainers work with care teams to understand the challenges that clients face and tailor a programme unique to their needs. Research has demonstrated an important link between physical exercise and mental health. Studies have shown that those clients who undergo a programme of physical therapy reap significant benefits, which include lower levels of medication, improved state of wellbeing and facilitated response for those resistant to treatment.
Psychesoma trainers are highly skilled in engagement and motivation, and excel in achieving response in challenging clients. Exercise creates an emotional openness in these clients, allowing a bond of trust to form between client and trainer. Our trainers are highly skilled in their ability to nurture this bond”.
Trainers work as an integrated part of the New Directions Team, allowing for a mutual exchange of insights used to continuously adapt the training programmes. Working together trainers use physical therapy to boost mood states, increase self-esteem and reduce relapse rates. Where possible, the trainers facilitate community based exercise activities to enhance the recovery pathway.
Our clients and staff across all of our services have the opportunity to attend weekly sessions with a mindfulness practitioner.
Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not be overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.
When we’re mindful, we reduce stress, enhance performance, gain insight and self awareness. It gives us a time in our lives when we can suspend judgment and unleash our natural curiosity about the workings of the mind and increase our attention to our own and to other people’s well-being; approaching our experience with warmth and kindness to ourselves and others.
We champion humanistic principles of support and actively seek to ensure we do not fall into the commonly seen tokenistic examples of person centredness in our sector.
Co-production is a fundamental ethos of the organisation, all aspects of service delivery are co-produced with our clients, thus empowering them to become the decision makers rather than merely taking part. Implementing this fundamental principle enables us to genuinely support individuals and to have a collective ‘one voice’ approach as we work together to enable each person to increase their autonomy and take control of their life.
At New Directions we believe passionately that our sector greatly benefits from the use of software. Investing heavily in technology solutions to streamline and automate administrative work we have seen substantial benefits in both efficiency and accuracy, in relation to care and support planning, service management and HR.
More importantly computers and smart phones, allow clients instant access to their own records and support files and our bespoke care planning solution software allows us to co-produce documents and support notes with, not for clients and embodies our philosophy of person centred support in action. Minimising time on administration and maximising time on support, in turn positively impacts on staff client dynamics, communication and best practice.
Running an exclusively ‘electronic’ service also ensures continous compliance with regulations, significantly reduces the need for and time spent auditing physical folders and has resulted in continous outstanding success in contract monitoring and CQC inspections across services.
