September 10, 2015

Values Awards: We encourage independence and choice

The following nomination was submitted based on the support provided by this employee to our Supported Living service users, specifically one of our gentleman tenants, James, who sadly passed away this year.

Winner: Kirsty McCartney

Kirsty McCartney has been a Support Worker with PSS for almost six years with our Supported Living service. Kirsty works at Mill Lane which is a Supported Living home for adults with mental health needs.

James was a service user in his eighties and had a learning disability as well as a mental health problem. He lived with PSS for over 20 years and had no family. He enjoyed football and going to the pub for a pint. James was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2013. To the amazement of his doctors, he managed to live with a relatively good quality of life until January this year when he passed away at home.

Kirsty’s values shone through during this period as she worked really hard to ensure that James’ choice to die at home was respected. James had become unable to use the stairs in the house and needed to stay downstairs. When it was discussed that he might have to go to a hospice or move to another of our locations, Kirsty fought for him to be able to stay in the home he had known for many years. As a result, this was able to happen and James passed away at home supported by Kirsty and team members John Kayll and Joanne Stephens.

Whilst James neared the end of life, Kirsty also continued to support our other service users to express their feelings and deal with their loss of a friend, whilst coming to terms with the loss herself.

Kirsty is always supporting people to express their choices. Recently she has been motivating other service users to go out in the community more and has arranged for one gentleman, Gary, to go to Madrid on holiday, which is one of his dreams. She has also worked hard with Adam, encouraging him to leave the house for walks and for lunch, despite the difficulties he can experience with his mental health needs.

Panel members were really touched by this nomination and felt that Kirsty’s efforts in this situation were second to none and enabled James to pass away at home as he wanted with the people he cared about around him. They also acknowledged the support provided to our others tenants in a very challenging situation, when others may have shied away from this and dissuaded them from exercising their choice.