Covid-19 Statement

A statement from our Managing Director, March 2020

As the situation with COVID-19 evolves daily across the country, at Care in Mind our priority is the safety and wellbeing of the young people in our care, and our staff who are caring for them.

We have established a COVID-19 task group to oversee the situation within Care in Mind. The group is currently meeting on a daily basis to monitor the situation, review the latest Government guidance and put actions in place accordingly. We are regularly issuing guidance to our staff and young people, including sharing updates in easier to read formats for those who will find this helpful.

We have also collated a page of useful resources including the latest guidance and advice on managing your mental health during this uncertain time.

We recognise that national guidance is being regularly updated and will continue to respond and adapt our processes and advice to young people and staff in line with the latest guidance, which can be found here.

Some of the measures we have taken so far to prioritise the safety of our young people and teams include:

  • All non-essential meetings and visits have been cancelled
  • Unfortunately, this means we have also had to stop visits to our houses from family and friends while the country is in lockdown. We are supporting young people to use technology and other options to remain in contact during this difficult time
  • Technology is being used to support clinical sessions, MDT meetings and stakeholder communications to limit the amount of contact across services
  • Technology is also being used to set up a forum for young people across all our services; this will host a variety of games, activities and other engaging content as well as facilitating contact between young people in different homes across the service. The aim of this is to help our young people to stay connected, reduce isolation and encourage peer support.
  • All services have been issued with stock of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and training in the use of PPE
  • Our transition and assessment protocols are being continually reviewed in line with evolving guidance
  • All of our staff and bank workers, regardless of their length of service, are eligible for full company sick pay should they contract the virus
  • To reassure our candidates, all of our recruitment interviews are being held over Microsoft teams to support social distancing measures
  • Our training is being completed online wherever possible, but where face to face sessions have to take place, large rooms are being utilised and numbers in the classroom reduced

Care in Mind are committed to working collaboratively with our health and social care partners in supporting the national response to COVID-19.

We remain committed to providing the highest quality of care to our young people and are doing all we can to ensure their safety and wellbeing.

Sharron Amri, Managing Director