Visits and Milestones

Hello!

I was thinking that for my first Blog entry I would tell everyone how much I have enjoyed going out and visiting services since taking responsibility for Registered Care earlier this year.

It has been great to catch up with some old friends (people I had not seen for years in some cases) as well as meeting a lot of new people, finding my way around parts of the country I was not at all familiar with.

To emphasise this point I was going to say I have managed to get out and visit 27 services but since Bill has managed to visit 33 services in just 2 weeks I feel that I am dragging my heels somewhat. I do plan to try my very best to get out to every service before the end of the year and those of you lucky enough to be on my "still to visit" list you may very well find yourselves getting a mention here (so no pressure)!

As well as Registered Care services I retained responsibility for the Lifelong Learning Services in Derbyshire and I can't let this first entry pass without mentioning a huge milestone that was achieved earlier this week.

As many of you will know we have been working towards transforming very traditional day services centred around a large building "Ringwood" which had 90 people a day attending when we took it on 2 and a half years ago. Well the doors have now been closed for the final time and the keys handed back - MacIntyre has left the building!!!

My thanks to all the staff and people who use the lifelong learning services who have worked so hard over the summer months to get to this point. There are some teething problems of course but already the benefits are clearly in evidence - we now face the challenge of continuing to build on the progress by supporting people to explore learning options and activities they may never have even considered as possibilities before.

I'm afraid that this is all you will hear from me for a couple of weeks as I am off to Egypt - can't wait I need to go pack!

Update again soon,

Regards,

Emma