If 2014 was an incredible year for Quarriers, this year promises to be even more exciting, says Lorraine Wilson.
It has been an eventful first year as Quarriers Chief Executive Officer for Alice Drife. She says: "It has . . . but it's been an exciting year. Being official charity of the 2014 Ryder Cup has provided a higher profile, and more importantly, has also allowed us to fund the launch of Life Coach services in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Elgin."
Life Coaches use the principles of sport to work alongside young people and find out what motivates them.
Many young people with Quarriers' services have had a poor start to their lives, often in the care system and not having the best experience in education.
"Our Life Coaches work intensively with young people to reach their goals. We have additional support from our ambassador Rory Bremner, who has taken a keen interest in the development of the crucial support service."
Alice admits to becoming much more knowledgeable about golf during the past year, adding: "I hadn't realised how
significant the connection with the Ryder Cup would be. It has been a great lever to helping us achieve Life Coaching,
which really helps young people to gain confidence and life skills away from the traditional sources of help."
The breadth of Quarriers activities takes in all people who are disadvantaged, regardless of age. Among the flagship services are support for people with a learning or physical disability to make connections in their own communities through activity groups, a multi-award winning programme of support for those people with a learning or physical disability to access the internet and computers, and world-leading assessment and diagnosis for people with epilepsy at the William Quarrier Scottish Epilepsy Centre in Glasgow.
Quarriers also supports young adults with accommodation needs and children with disabilities who might need foster care, in the short or long term.
It's been a challenging year in some ways, as the teams have been coming up with increasingly creative methods of support for all those who need their services, despite some changes due to cuts in funding.
"We have managed to innovate in many areas," says Alice. "For example, in social care we support children who need ventilators at home. There we work in partnership with Yorkhill, and this allows children to go home and have a family life."
Quarriers is also the only social care charity to have an independent hospital. "The William Quarrier Scottish Epilepsy Centre is a world-class service and again we work in partnership, this time with health boards across Scotland. It has also just been shortlisted for the Health Investor Awards in the UK," she adds. The services are also wide in the geographic sense, with support stretching from Dumfries and Galloway to the Highlands.
"In Moray, there is a great deal of innovative work going on, particularly for carers supporting people with dementia or people affected by drug and alcohol issues. We also work alongside GP practices there."
The work there has been recognised, with Quarriers Carer Support Service being highly commended for its partnership with Moray Council at the SQA Star Awards. This innovative collaboration between Quarriers and Moray Council provides unpaid carers with opportunities for lifelong learning.
"No matter where carers live, they can feel isolated," points out Alice. "It's important they are looked after and know that they are not alone.
"If a carer falls ill and maybe gets depressed, it also has a direct impact on the person they are caring for." Alice says that Quarriers is focused on personalised, self-directed support, adding: "We are not in the business of the 15-minute visit. We want to offer quality support services, so that people can trust us and we can offer customised services."
Many services are about empowering individuals and giving them the skills to help themselves. Many people with disabilities feel excluded from the online world but that can have more serious repercussions as the most basic of everyday tasks are increasingly moving online. The Go4It digital inclusion service for adults receiving Quarriers services has received several awards during the past year for its approach in providing training, assessment, access to equipment and support. Quarriers is also concerned with looking after its own people. Wellbeing in the workplace is key to teams and this approach is seen as being just as important as the training and development.
"We are leading the way with a mindfulness approach that has been adopted following a joint conference with CALM associates last year, where around 120 people from all over Scotland came together to look at well-being in the workplace."
As a charity working on the ground in many areas of social care Quarriers is also well-placed to become involved in cross-party discussions at then Scottish Government and also leads campaigns. At the moment Quarriers is conducting a "WAR on Hate Crime". This targets disability hate crime, something that 90% of people with learning disabilities say they have experienced - including harassment and bullying. This provides yet another barrier to people with disability participating fully in society.
"That's what is so satisfying about working with Quarriers - it is so diverse. However, everything we do is centred on supporting people to reach their potential."
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