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About Essex Care Consortium Ltd

Our Philosophy, Aims and Objectives

Essex Care Consortium is an independent, therapeutic resource registered with The Care Quality Commission – our main site is at Birch, near Colchester, Essex. We provide a wide range of specialist residential care and day services for people with learning disabilities, who have complex needs aged 18 and above. We are also a City & Guilds Approved Centre, providing training for Social Care staff.

Established in 1971, we have over forty five years experience of working alongside young people and adults who have learning disabilities, supporting them in coming to terms with both their learning disabilities and the impact of any additional emotional trauma, or mental health issues within their lives. This is achieved through the development of appropriate living and working environments that facilitate the personal growth necessary for self-fulfilment and empowerment.

SPECIALIST SUPPORT

We are trained to support people Differing Complex Needs within our Care environments. We are able to offer specialist support with a wide range of issues including:

Autism Impaired Communication Asperges Syndrome Behaviour that challenges Emotional trauma Abuse Loss and bereavement Epilepsy Alzheimer's/Dementia

Anxiety Eating disorders Depression Bipolar Disorder Prader Willi Syndrome Mental Health issues Personality disorder Obsessive-compulsive disorder Food allergies

Essex Care Consortium has three residential sites:

‘Essex Care Consortium Ltd: Colchester’
This is our main site located near Birch, which is ten minutes outside Colchester town. We have two residential houses: ‘Cedar’ and ‘Birch’, and seven beautiful spacious single service registered flats.

 

Access Learning Centre and our Accredited City and Guilds Centre ‘PiP’ (Principals In Practice) are also based on the Colchester site, and housed in separate buildings from the residential care.

 

Access takes students with learning disabilities from the wider communities of Colchester, Braintree and Maldon as well as from our three residential sites.

 

‘PiP’ offers a broad range of training across the Health and Care sector. For details see our section on Training Courses.

 

Our head office and main administration is also based on the Colchester site, which provides administration, maintenance, learning, training and leisure support and facilities across the whole organization.

 

‘Essex Care Consortium Ltd: Marks Tey’
Our Marks Tey site has two further residential bungalows: ‘The Laurels’ and ‘The Vines’ and an independent registered flat, ‘Station Rd. Flat’.

 

‘Essex Care Consortium Ltd : Prettygate’
Our Prettgate site is a four-bedded registered house in Plume Avenue, Prettygate, five minutes from Colchester centre by car.

Our principle aims are to empower and promote the personal autonomy of the people we work alongside. We acknowledge and uphold the intrinsic value of each person as a unique individual. We believe that all people should be accorded an equal degree of acceptance, personal freedom and opportunity for individual growth and development, regardless of their perceived physical, intellectual or emotional ability. We recognise this has not always been the experience of people who have a learning disability, many of whom have historically experienced additional and disempowering burdens of social inequality, segregation, prejudice, personal trauma and mistreatment.

In our experience, people with learning disabilities who constantly present behaviours that challenge or who struggle to reach achievable goals, frequently have additional unidentified problems or issues that underline their difficulties. These stumbling blocks are either simply unrecognisable or more often hidden within the generic diagnosis of their particular disability.

We are committed to helping clients identify and address any unrecognised issue or difficulty that is a cause of distress, which in turn will help to empower the person to make informed decisions affecting their current and future life. We are committed to a high degree of social and developmental interaction with our clients and our Inclusive Communication Environment, Our communication team focuses on developing the communication and language skills of our clients and staff in all aspects of our provision.

For many years we have been actively involved in promoting equal rights for the people we work alongside, being both instrumental in bringing about change and contributing on many levels to the wider process of reform. This work includes involvement at local level with many committees and organisations and consultation work for national bodies such as the General Social Care Council.


The Management Team

The Director of Essex Care Consortium, Katrina Oliver-Lingley brings significant experience from the fields of residential care. She has her NVQ 5 Diploma and has been with Essex Care Consortium since 1987. Her specialism is in Client Centred Care. She is also the ‘Nominated Individual’. for the organisation and overseas all sites.

Lakshmi Thotapalli is the General Manager and Covid Lead for all sites. She has her NVQ 5 Diploma and has been with Essex Care Consortium over 10 years. Her specialisms are medication and medical Issues.

Our Managers and Assistant Managers have generally been with us for between 10 to 20 years. Natalie Schofield is the Registered Manager for the Colchester Site and Plume Avenue site her Assistant Manager is Lucy Carley. Emy Honfi is the Manager for Marks Tey . Jo Nicholls is the 1.1 Intensive Support Manager and also a Support Manager at Marks Tey . Jackie Strohm is the Manager for ‘Access’ with Jeri-Anne Anderton her Assistant. Sue Rees is our systems Manager.
This management team offers a valuable continuity for clients, staff and parents as well as providing a broad and extensive range of practical experience, individual expertise and commitment in Care Management. They have all taken courses in Adult Safeguarding, Inclusive Communication, Physical Intervention, Medication and Mental Health Issues and completed the Oliver- McGowan Training and much more. Our aim is to communicate effectively, the team meets informally on a weekly basis and holds a formal management meeting once a month. Written reports are submitted by each house manager for discussion together with minutes from client meetings.

Staffing and training

All our resources are well staffed enabling an individual, person-centred and needs-led approach to care. All employees are carefully selected and are checked for barring with the Independent Safeguarding Authority and are DBS checked.

We prioritise training and all staff are trained to the National Care Standards requirements. Each individual completes an extensive recorded induction period in line with the National Care Certificate. Further training is provided on a regular basis by ‘Principles in Practice ’. and other external training bodies. Staff training includes: City Guilds Accredited QCF Diplomas Levels 2, 3 and 5, Inclusive Communication, SOVA (Safeguarding of Vulnerable Adults), First Aid, Health and Safety, Fire Safety and Evacuation, Basic Food and Hygiene, Health and Safety, Lifting and Handling, Boots MDS, Breakaway and Physical Intervention, Mental Capacity Act and Deprivation of Liberty Standards.

A Manager supports each Department and two members of the Management Team are always on 24-hour on-call, available to clients, staff, relatives and Social Workers. Bethan is also available should the need arise. Each house has its’ own individual staff structure including a Manager, Assistant Manager, Shift Leader and Support Workers and ancillary staff.

Achieving Quality Care

We believe that having the highest quality care is an absolute right of every client. We believe that no matter how good the present services are there is always room for improvement.

At Essex Care Consortium we pride ourselves on the professionalism of our work underpinned by a caring approach measured by constant monitoring and auditing - a process that is fully inclusive of our clients needs and opinions. We are proud of our ISO9001/2015 status and our Positive about Disability Award.

If you are interested in more detailed information on our staff policies, training, protection of clients, safety and security measures, placements, care planning, specialist input and support, key working, Care Reviews, and links with families, friends and representatives, then please contact us for a copy of our Statement of Purpose.