Blog

World Autism Acceptance Month

AugustaCare

We’re supporting #WorldAutismAcceptanceMonth because it plays a vital role in educating the wider public on understanding what Autism is, how it effects people and what can be done to provide support and adjustments that can be made to make the world a more accessible place. World Autism Acceptance Month takes place in April. During this time, there will be information and campaigns to increase autism awareness and acceptance, as well as activities and opportunities for people to get involved, at home, at school and at work.

  • Autism is a lifelong disability which affects how people communicate and interact with
    the world.
  • At least one in 100 people are autistic which means more than 700,000 people in the
    UK.
  • Autistic people have a range of strengths and challenges. For example, some autistic
    people also have a learning disability and may need support with daily tasks like
    washing, cooking or exercising. Other autistic people are in full time work and may
    benefit from reasonable adjustments.
  • Autistic people may:
    o Face challenges with communication and social interaction
    o Be under- or over-sensitive to sounds, touch, tastes, smells, light and colours.
    o Have highly focused interests or hobbies.
    o Have repetitive or restrictive behaviour.
    o Experience intense anxiety around unexpected change and social situations.
    o Experience ‘meltdowns’ or ‘shutdowns’.

About the National Autistic Society

  • The National Autistic Society is the UK’s leading charity for autistic people.
  • We are here to transform lives, change attitudes and create a society that works for
    autistic people.
  • Since 1962, we have been campaigning for autistic people’s rights and providing
    support and advice to autistic people and their families.
  • To find out more about the charity and autism, visit www.autism.org.uk

Senior Management Change

AugustaCare

Heather Broderick (Group Operations Manager) will be leaving the company for a new opportunity.

We are pleased to announce that we have appointed Sarah Rodwell as our Head of Operations. Sarah began her employment with the company on Monday 10th February and is currently working through her induction and getting to know the company, our service users and staff teams.

Sarah has a wealth of knowledge previously working within the local authority and private social care industry.

Over the next couple of weeks Sarah will be joining the Service Managers in visiting all services to introduce herself. We hope that our support staff teams will be welcoming and be able to demonstrate the good work that you all do for our service users on a daily basis.

Please be aware any documentation that currently refers to Heather or the Group Operations Manager position will be updated in due course.

Positive review from Peterborough City Council

AugustaCare

Augusta Care underwent a periodic review from Peterborough City Council in March 2024.

The purpose of the review is for the commissioning team at the local authority to review our care plans, risk assessments, record keeping, training, staffing levels, recruitment practices and personnel records in addition to obtaining feedback from service users, families and staff teams.

Some of the service user feedback included:

“I think the staff here do well”. “I do not know what I would do without them”.

“I am happy, I like my staff and my house”

Feedback from a member of support staff:

“The individual service user should be supported to make choices about their care and support. They should be given information in a way that they can understand so they can make informed choices. When working with individuals who cannot express their wants, needs and wishes in words, you must find other ways of communicating with them.”

We are very proud to say the review went well, meeting all the required standards and there were no concerns highlighted.

A big thank you to our staff teams for their continued support in providing a good service to our service users.

Merry Christmas

AugustaCare

We would like to wish all our service users, staff and contacts a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Our head office will be closed on Monday 25th and Tuesday 26th December, re-opening on Wednesday 27th at 9am as usual. We will also be closed on Monday 1st January, re-opening on Tuesday 2nd at 9am as usual. Our emergency out-of-hours on-call is available 24/7 and can be reached by calling the office on 01733 233725 and selecting option 1.

‘Secret Santa’ donates to local Food Bank

AugustaCare

As we head into the festive season once again, Augusta Care’s head office team decided to continue the tradition of donating to the local Food Bank instead of operating a ‘Secret Santa’. Our donation has now been sent off to the Food bank so that it can hopefully be put to good use ahead of the big day.

If you would like to know more and find out how you can get involved, please visit: https://peterborough.foodbank.org.uk/give-help/

Augusta turns 25!

AugustaCare

This week marks the 25th anniversary of Augusta Care. The company has changed a lot since it was founded in 1998 with our supported living services continuing to grow across Peterborough, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk.

Today we invited our service users to join us at Head Office to celebrate the occasion with a variety of activites including bingo, cake decorating and arts & crafts as well as some well deserved refreshments. A fun time was had by everyone who joined in and a thank you goes out to everyone who got involved. Some of the service users who joined in today have been with us from the very beginning and we are so proud as a company to be a part of their lives.

Spooky Halloween fun and celebrations

AugustaCare

Our service users have been busy over Halloween, with lots doing arts & crafts, carving pumpkins, decorating their homes and even a Halloween themed birthday party too! Here is just a selection of the wonderful photos that have been sent in…

The winner of our Halloween competition will be announced shortly now all the entries have been collated.

Celebrating recruitment success

AugustaCare

In February 2022, Augusta Care began the application process to become a ‘Sponsored Employer’ with the Home Office so that we could offer employment to those applying from outside the UK and those who were seeking a change to their existing visa status, such as those who had finished their studies.

A few months later we were awarded our Sponsorship License and so we could begin offering Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) to successful applicants.

Fast forward to just over 14 months later, Augusta Care has welcomed a new cohort of staff from both overseas and within the UK changing visa status and have recently began celebrating 1 year service of our new recruits.

Our International Recruitment Project has proved to be incredibly invaluable to the organisation, providing much needed staff support in an ever difficult to recruit to industry.

We have just conducted our final ‘wave’ of recruitment where we offered CoS to applicants and hope to review the project again in 2024 with the potential to open up the project for further applicants.