Orchard House is a Mental Health Community Recovery Home for men. This is a support-worker-led, step-down facility for service users that require continued recovery work within a less restrictive setting. The service is staffed on a 24-hour basis. It provides people with proactive, time limited and continued rehabilitation services. It is flexible enough to meet individual needs and focus upon assisting recovery. The goal being to support people into further independence within the community following discharge from a hospital setting.

The service builds upon the recovery work already undertaken by individuals and supports a recovery programme which assists individuals in managing symptoms and their mental health and wellbeing. The service focuses on continued development of independent living skills and skills of self-management to support increased independence and discharge into independent or semi-independent living.

The service benefits from continued input from a full multi-disciplinary team.

Orchard House enables individuals to exercise control and make informed choices by:

• Promoting a range of social and community activities, which promote healthy habits, lifestyles and networks, including access to adult education, voluntary work and employment.
• Continuing support and development of self-management skills such as personal hygiene, time management and domestic skills including budgeting, shopping and cooking.
• Supporting the person to manage their own medication in a safe and supported environment.
• Supporting the person to develop coping strategies and manage ongoing symptoms alongside continued delivery of a psychoeducation programme to support development of these strategies.
• Ensuring services are responsive to individuals, taking account of their race, religion, culture, age, disability, gender and sexuality.
• Allocating a named worker to each person to support development, promotion and monitoring of individual recovery programmes.
• Offering planned sessions with key professionals from the MDT. These will have been identified as essential for the individual and will be key to meeting specific recovery objectives.
• Undertaking MDT reviews within the service every six-weeks as well as CPA reviews every 12 months and following the first 3 months of placement.

At each CPA meeting and throughout the placement, active planning for discharge must be undertaken. This process must include the service user, care co-ordinator, carers (where appropriate) and all those who will be involved in future support and provision.

The recovery journey of each individual service user will be measured using specific recovery assessment tools deemed appropriate by the multidisciplinary team. These will be used to inform care delivery and to assess appropriateness for transfer to a more independent setting when suitable.

Mental health rehabilitation placements will always be of a time-limited nature and permanent placements should not be considered for this scheme. The duration of placements should last no longer than 18-24 months.

Service user Profile

• Male.
• Predominantly adults of working age (older adults will not be excluded on the criteria of age alone).
• Primary diagnosis of mental illness with complex needs; this would typically include Schizophrenia, Schizo-affective disorder or bipolar affective disorder; although no diagnosis will warrant exclusion for assessment.
• The person is subject to the provisions of the CPA.
• May have a secondary diagnosis of learning disability or personality disorder
• Forensic history.

• Complex risk history, including forensic involvement, and substance, drug and alcohol issues.
• Vulnerable to abuse, exploitation from others or self-neglect.
• The individual is currently in a mental health hospital and is ready for discharge.
• The individual agrees to continuing a programme of rehabilitation within a residential setting.
• Each person must have a named care co-ordinator from a Community Mental Health Team or Assertive Outreach Team and written care plan under CPA.

Staffing

The service is staffed by the following experienced staff:

• Registered Manager
• Senior Support Workers
• Support Workers

Orchard House benefits from the visiting input of a full multi-disciplinary team:

• Registered Nurse
• Psychiatry
• Psychology
• Occupational Therapy