Family Charter

This charter, written in collaboration with families, sets out Achieve together’s commitment to families.

It sets out how we work with the people we support, and their families from first contact to a settled life in their new home and community.

Learning about your family member

We want to understand and learn as much as we can about the person.

We will collect information on:

Key people in their lives: immediate and extended family, friends and
acquaintances, professionals.
Pets: any animals that have been or are important in the person’s life.
An outline of their life so far: For example; short life story, important events, spiritual and cultural identity, interests, favoured hobbies, food and drink, things they do not like, things that may cause upset, support and treatment needs.
Aspirations: We will seek to understand the person’s ambitions and dreams.

We will support families to:

Understand the difference between registered residential and supported living models of support and accommodation.
Understand who pays for what once your relative is supported by Achieve together.
Look ahead: The home/supported living manager, the person supported and family, with the funding authority will agree plans of support and measurable outcomes collaboratively.
Develop a ‘moving in’ plan: How we will help your relative move into their new home.

Families will be introduced to the manager and support team, advised how we work, what to expect, channels of communication, how families can feedback concerns, complaints, compliments and ideas.
Everyone we support is allocated a keyworker. The keyworker will develop detailed knowledge of your relative and will help them get the most out of their life at home and in the community.

Person-centred planning: the needs and interests of people we support are at the heart of our planning process and we welcome your input. Families see and contribute to support planning documents, with permission from their relative.
The keyworker and manager, with your relative, will agree plans for being meaningfully occupied with the aim of maximising life opportunities and involvement in their local community.
Family involvement: managers will establish how families want to be involved in their relative’s life, with permission from your relative. We will seek clarity on frequency and type of contact, communication, spending time together in person and/or virtually.
Health promotion, prevention and planning: Achieve together will agree plans with your relative to have the best possible health support, accessing local health services to focus on personal health checks, plans, screening and prevention.

Depending on the team structure, the manager, deputy manager/practice leads or the keyworker will be a point of communication with families.
The manager will ask families about what regular information they want to receive about their relative and families will be invited
to annual reviews (with the person’s permission), and Mental Capacity Act Best Interest meetings.
The manager will ensure timely communication with families in the event of any concerns, incidents or accidents that have affected their relative.
Families can choose to receive the Achieve together newsletter, and other key updates by opting in to receiving regular updates.
The manager will keep families informed about team member changes at their relative’s home.
The Achieve together website shows the company’s structure and senior management.
Achieve together runs regular webinars for family members to convene and discuss a wide range of topics.
Achieve together support a Family Quality & Consultation Group which acts as a family representative group to feedback on quality matters, plan regular webinars and engage in Achieve together activities that enhance the support we offer. Family members can request to join this group.

High quality support, as agreed with the person supported, their family and funding authority.
People will always be supported with respect, kindness and compassion.
Support will always be with personal safety in mind. We take our safeguarding role seriously, and everyone working for Achieve together has a shared responsibility to safeguard people from poor practice, harm, exploitation or neglect.
Support will follow the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005.
Transparency and honesty always, acknowledging and apologising if we make mistakes – outlining how we will learn from our mistakes.
Open to feedback from all relevant parties.
If there is an issue, families should raise this with the manager first, but if this is not appropriate, then with the head of area or operations director.
Families should feel free to make comment via Contact us - Achieve together.
Continual review - the Achieve together quality team runs a continuous programme of internal inspections, which are in addition to external inspections from CQC/CIW.

There are opportunities for family members to become more deeply involved with Achieve together on a voluntary basis, for example, contributing to documents such as this Family Charter, Family Quality Checking, judging team member/manager of the month awards, commenting on policies, support in attending and planning events.
Achieve together aims to put families in touch with one another, through family events at individual homes and through the family webinars.

Download a copy of the Family Charter or click the video to watch the British Sign Language (BSL) version.

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