Martin Anderson on his role as deaf services manager at Heanor Park care home (BSL vlog with transcript)

Transcript:

Hello! My name is Martin Anderson and I’m the deaf services manager here at Heanor Park and I’d like to tell you a bit about what services we provide.

Here at Heanor Park we have sixty beds for elderly residents who have dementia and/or residential needs. Heanor Park is just one care home out of a group of seven care homes across Derbyshire founded by Ashmere. Ashmere set up the seven homes to provide residential support, nursing or dementia care to older adults who need these services.

I was specifically recruited in January this year to focus on delivering a deaf service to older deaf adults who require personal care or residential support. I’m aware that nationally we do not have this service anywhere apart from a care home on the Isle of Wight. I recognise that the deaf community is in dire need of support for those who are older and require personal care in a residential home.

Heanor Park is one building that is made up of five households. These are Devonshire – for independent living; Coppice for Dementia support; Ormonde for residential living ; Woodside and Bailey Brook. These are the five households within one care home.

I’m currently focusing on Woodside which can provide care for twelve deaf adults in a residential setting. So this means supporting residents with personal care, social support and communication needs as well as ensuring they remain well and healthy. Before I explain in more depth about my role here, I’d like to give you a bit more information about my background.

I started working in care as a care assistant back in 2005. I was really keen to learn as much as I can and quickly progressed into gaining my care qualifications and certificates in care which went from level two, level three and then to level five.

At the care home I previously worked at I managed to work my way up to becoming the community lead dementia support, which involved working in a separate building which focused on supporting the hearing residents with dementia care. I really enjoyed this role, it was so varied and I loved learning about the residents rich history. I then relocated to Derby where I started work for Action Deafness and remained for six years, learning so much about the deaf community and gaining more insight about the culture and language.

Moving here I have two separate areas I am really passionate about; supporting the deaf community and also providing dementia care in a residential setting. Those two areas will be my focus as the manager of deaf services here.

My role involves identifying what deaf residents need. I have seen many deaf adults and elderly deaf people in hearing care homes. They struggle with communication, something that was a huge challenge through the covid pandemic, as they were unable to lipread so sadly they became more and more isolated.

Sadly this sort of isolation can be really detrimental to their mental health and general wellbeing. Without communication, deaf residents are unable to understand what’s going on around them. My role is to identify which deaf residents need communication support and provide this.

Here at Heanor Park we want to provide a specific care provision for deaf adults. The building is already established, with deaf staff and hearing staff who can use BSL. We have accessible equipment, for example we know that many residents don’t use traditional doorbells/knockers, so we have doorbells that link to flashing lights and vibrating alerts so that our residents can have their own privacy and we respect their independence.

We are working closely with local deaf clubs too to ensure that residents are able to go over and visit and mix with friends in a social setting.

If you would like to know more about the services here at Heanor Park please do contact us, I am happy to video chat in BSL or you can text/email any time. Thank you for watching!

Martin Anderson is a deaf BSL user and the current deaf services manager at Heanor Park care home. To find out more about this service please contact him on martin.anderson@ashmere.co.uk or text/video call 07864046983