“Excellent” West Sussex day service becomes UK’s first to receive accreditation for excellence in dementia care
A West Sussex day service has become the first of its kind in the UK and internationally to be accredited with The Butterfly Approach – establishing an exemplary dementia care culture where people can thrive.
Bradbury Wellbeing Centre, in Worthing, recently received the highly regarded accreditation from care and culture consultancy, Meaningful Care Matters, for the successful implementation of its person‐centred care model.
The Butterfly Approach has a meticulous focus on creating a person‐centred care culture where people are ‘free to be me’. The model values emotional intelligence, relationship based care culture, and the core belief that everyone has a unique story that has meaning and matters. It is about putting the focus back on people and their emotions by engaging in the reality of people’s lived experience in the ‘here and now’.
Bradbury Wellbeing Centre achieved an Excellent rating from Meaningful Care Matters, who described the service’s team as having a “meaningful rapport with the people in attendance at the day centre”. It was also reported how they had shown “such resilience and truly continued to ‘Be a Butterfly’, creating moments of meaningful engagement for all.”
Opened in 2015, the day service is operated by Guild Care, a Worthing‐based charity that provides a wide range of community services to support older people and children and adults with learning disabilities. Adjacent to Guild Care’s Haviland House dementia care home, Bradbury Wellbeing Centre offers an extensive and innovative programme of events, and provides a safe and stimulating environment for people living with dementia each year, whilst at the same time offering respite for their carers.
During the recent pandemic, Guild Care adapted its services, offering telephone befriending support, day services at home, and face-to-face respite services at reduced capacity to enable social distancing.
Upon receiving the accreditation, Claire Howell, Guild Care’s Director of Community Services, said: “We couldn’t be more thrilled that the Bradbury Wellbeing Centre has received an ‘Excellent’ accreditation from Meaningful Care Matters as a result of their recent audit. Person-centred care is an essential component of every Guild Care service, from our community services right through to our nursing homes, but no more so than when we are supporting those living with dementia and their carers. We pride ourselves on creating a loving environment where everyone matters and each person is free to be themselves, whether they are a service user, a relative, a volunteer, or a member of staff.”
Peter Bewert, Managing Director of Meaningful Care Matters, said: “We’re delighted to see our partners at Bradbury Wellbeing Centre becoming the first day centre in the UK to be awarded accreditation under The Butterfly Approach®. It has been testing time for the social care sector, so we applaud their determination to offer an environment where people using their services can thrive and enjoy the highest quality of life possible. We look forward to assisting more day centres in facilitating the creation, reinvigoration and sustainable implementation of person‐centred care cultures. It’s coming back to the art and heart of care, where people, and moments, matter.”
For more information on Meaningful Care Matters and its cultural transformation models, visit https://meaningfulcarematters.com/.
Alternatively, for more information on Bradbury Wellbeing Centre and Guild Care, visit https://www.guildcare.org/.
